Quebec once again asks Ottawa to delay deadline for marijuana legalization

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QUEBEC – The Quebec government asked the federal government again on Wednesday to push back the marijuana legalization deadline by one year, one day before the province tables its own cannabis bill.

Ottawa has promised marijuana will be legal across Canada by July 1, 2018, and has left it to the provinces to create their own legal framework on how the law would be enforced on their territory.

Quebec Public Health Minister Lucie Charlebois said more time is needed to figure out how tax revenues will be divided between Ottawa and the provinces.

Charlebois and Finance Minister Carlos Leitao told reporters Quebec rejected Ottawa’s offer to split the marijuana excise tax 50-50 between the federal government and the provinces.

Quebec had asked Ottawa last June to delay the implementation of the marijuana law, to no avail.

Her bill, to be tabled in the legislature Thursday, is expected to create a provincially owned corporation — the Societe quebecoise du cannabis — that will control and sell marijuana in the province.

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