B.C. Municipalities are putting the pressure on the province when it comes to getting their share of cannabis revenue.
They passed a resolution at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention to request a 40 per cent share of cannabis excise tax from the province.
However, Premier John Horgan says it’s too early to talk about slicing up the pie.
“Before we can have a real discussion about sharing revenue, we have to know how much there is and we just don’t know that yet,” said Horgan. “That’s been my answer to municipalities when they come to me is that, ‘look, we’re quite prepared to engage in the discussion of sharing,’ but we don’t know what we’re sharing.”
Horgan added, “We know that the federal government is taking 25 per cent and we did not anticipate that a year ago.”
He says he’s anticipating supply and demand hiccups until officials can get a handle on the uptake of cannabis and a lot depends on the consumers of cannabis.
“The consuming public will make choices after October about whether they participate in the legal, regulated distribution market or they continue to access their cannabis through other means,” said Horgan. “With all of those variables in the air, we don’t know how we could sit down and talk to anyone about cutting up the pie when we don’t know how much pie there is going to be.”
Cannabis use becomes legal on October 17.
