Article by Mike Crawley, CBC News A battle is brewing over how Premier Doug Ford’s government will divvy up the private sector’s share of Ontario’s retail cannabis market. Legislation that would allow companies to operate pot shops in Canada’s largest province is now under scrutiny at Queen’s Park and businesses are trying to influence key details of the bill. Once crucial aspect of ...

Article by Alana MacLeod, Global News With cannabis legalization just days away, incumbent Toronto mayor John Tory says he’s preparing City officials and police officers for any issues that may arise. In a press release sent out Sunday, Tory said he wrote a letter to Ontario Attorney General Caroline Mulroney, outlining the City’s plans. “While I support cannabis legalization, that support — as mayor of ...

Article by CTV Windsor    A Leamington company in the red-hot pot industry destroyed a batch of weed because it couldn’t find enough skilled production workers in time. Producer Aphria Inc. said it disposed of 13,642 plants after “a lack of qualified local labour” for greenhouse jobs slowed harvesting. It means that one week’s crop rotation outgrew maximum quality. Investors didn’t ...

Article by Richard Southern and Shauna Hunt, CityNews It’s the final countdown until the legalization of marijuana across Canada and to show off their preparedness, the provincial government gave the media a sneak peek at the official Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) website where weed will be sold starting Oct. 17. When the website goes live at 12:01 a.m., customers will ...

Article by Michael Babad, Globe and Mail They say the grass is always greener on the other side. But it’s not always cheaper, particularly if you live in Ontario and Quebec. . The latest findings from Statistics Canada show some interesting price dynamics with legal marijuana just a week away. . According to the agency’s crowdsourcing data, average prices for ...

Article by Canadian Press via Toronto Star The federal government says it will spend $4.1 million on three cannabis-related public education campaigns aimed at youth in Toronto. John Oliver, parliamentary secretary to the federal minister of health, announced the funding as part of Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program. Oliver says the program will help educate young people about ...

Article by Nick Boisvert, CBC News At the Happy Dayz smoke shop in downtown Richmond Hill, a pair of customers browse shelves and glass cases stocked with pipes, rolling papers, scales and bongs. But despite the hundreds of cannabis accessories and extensive marijuana imagery covering the walls, there’s no actual weed on sale at the store. Customers say they’d like ...

Article by Jacquie Miller, Ottawa Citizen Cannabis companies are intensifying efforts to get attention for their brands even as Health Canada launches another crackdown on the promotion of pot. There appears to be a game of regulatory chicken emerging. Some companies are seemingly testing the boundaries with billboards, digital ads, websites describing their recreational marijuana, free events and sponsorships. Health ...

Article by Jen Skerritt, Bloomberg News Eager pot buyers hoping to score some weed when Canada goes legal next week could be in for a bummer. Across the nation, only a handful of retail locations will be up and running on Oct. 17, including just one store in British Columbia and none in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Producers, meanwhile, ...

Article by James McLeod, Financial Post When Canadians go to buy their first grams of legal cannabis next week, many of them will do so through the internet, creating huge quantities of data as a side effect of their purchases. But with only one week until legalization, privacy advocates say they still have plenty of questions about how that data will ...