Legalization of marijuana: the quebec farmers want support in Quebec

Patrick Bellerose

Wednesday, December 6, 2017 15:56

UPDATE
Wednesday, 6 December 2017 16:00

Look at this article

The Union of agricultural producers application to Québec to assist local farmers in order to create a quebec industry, production of marijuana.

For the moment, Quebec has only two producers authorized to produce medical cannabis, compared to 44 in Ontario.

“It is necessary to support the producers, as is done in other productions : financial support and support in the support to producers”, said on Wednesday the second vice-president of the UPA, Martin Caron.

The union of agricultural producers was coming to testify by the parliamentary commission on bill 157, which is to oversee the legalization of marijuana.

Centres of expertise

The UPA has not encrypted the financial support necessary to create an industry in quebec of cannabis and pointed out that several other measures will be needed to help the producers.

Martin Caron hopes in particular that Quebec’s investment in research. “It takes including centres of expertise to support the producers, as it is done in other types of production,” he says.

In addition, the UPA hopes that the government of quebec creates a “value chain roundtable” that would bring together the producers, processors and distributors.

Production quebec

Without State aid, the production of cannabis will become the preserve of a few large companies, believes Martin Caron. “If we don’t support the producers in their together, it will have made the choice to go to the bigger companies,” he says.

At term, the UPA hopes that 100% of the marijuana sold through the future quebec Society in the cannabis is produced in Quebec.

The CAQ has also filed a motion to this effect to the blue Room on Wednesday, but the government Couillard has refused his consent to discuss it.

Economics of cannabis

The minister responsible for public Health, responsible for the bill 157, which ensures that Quebec will help quebec producers at a time and place. “When the time comes, we will activate and we will provide the means, but this is premature,” said Lucie Charlebois.

However, not matter for Quebec’s use of the production of marijuana to boost some regions devitalized. “This is not the purpose of Quebec [create an] economy of cannabis, underlines Lucie Charlebois. We want to respond to a demand for cannabis for non-therapeutic, but we don’t want to sell more.”