Health Canada, the government agency that oversees the cannabis industry, has informed CannTrust that its manufacturing facility in Vaughan, Ontario broke several rules, the company said in a statement.
CannTrust has already been struggling with the fallout from breaches at its greenhouse in Pelham, Ontario, where it grew cannabis in unlicensed rooms.
The Pelham problems led to the firing of Chief Executive Officer Peter Aceto, a halt on all sales and shipments of CannTrust products, and a joint investigation by securities regulators and police. Auditor KPMG LLP also withdrew its reports on the Canadian cannabis company’s year-end and first-quarter results.
Health Canada found that the Vaughan facility had the following issues:
- The conversion of five rooms from operational areas to storage areas, which were used for storage since June 2018 without prior approval of Health Canada;
- The construction of two new areas without prior approval of Health Canada, one of which was used to store cannabis since November 2018;
- Insufficient security controls at the manufacturing facility;
- Inadequate quality assurance investigations and controls;
- Standard operating procedures that did not to meet the requirements under regulations; and
- Documents or information that were not retained in a manner to enable Health Canada to complete its audit in a timely manner.
In a press release, the company stated that they are collaborating with Health Canada in order to solve these problems. On top of that, CannTrust said that "the Company has already begun the process of investigating and remediating the root causes of any non-compliance and expects to propose a robust remediation plan to Health Canada."
Source bnnbloomberg.ca