Cannabis legalization is coming up quickly and the Madawaska Valley Mayor wants council to be prepared for it.
Cannabis will be legal as of October 17th. With the municipal election 5 days later, Madawaska Valley Mayor Kim Love says she’s told staff to make sure the new council will be ready to handle legalization. She says she’s asked them to do research on how it will affect Madawaska Valley and be prepared to present options and ideas to the next council once they start in December. “All of these other things that were done by the government are now on the backs of the municipality,” she says. That includes things like planning and enforcement, she says.
Mayoral candidate Andry Kaminski says that having staff research cannabis legalization isn’t necessary. “This has nothing to do with the daily activities of staff and their time,” Kaminski says in a statement to My Barry’s Bay Now. He says Love needs to go to the higher levels of government for a meeting to identify what this will mean to the township. “The County needs to obtain the necessary info to advise all the Municipalities,” he says.
With enforcement, Love said she has a new perspective after attending a conference at the AMO Conference a few weeks ago. “What was surprising to all of us at the conference was that the onus is going to more be on by-law enforcement than on the opp in terms of enforcing the law,” she says. She went on to say that no one attending was expecting to hear that.
Mayoral candidate Councillor Elser Lee Archer says she expects a consultation document to be made with municipalities being able to weigh in with what they see as pros and cons. “I’m sure not what Kim intends to do,” she says. She says that she believes the province and AMO will be doing the preparation work and then Madawaska Valley will be consulted afterwards. “We have to wait for the province’s consultation process,” Archer says.
Love says that this means by-law enforcement will become a significant department. She adds it will also affect the municipal budget and staffing changes will possibly come as well.
“Now we just have to re-think everything,” Love says.