With the Coronavirus pandemic hitting the global economy, countries around the world are adopting measures to limit the damages. Among the many sectors that may resort to such subsidies, there is also the cannabis industry. However, the measures taken in Canda do not seem to include cannabis business.
As ctvnews report, Cannabis companies are calling on Ottawa to provide immediate help for the industry, hurt by the steps taken to slow the spread of COVID-19. About 71 cannabis firms and organizations, including Canopy Rivers Inc., WeedMD, Organigram Inc. and Fire and Flower, have written a letter to Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains asking for their companies to get access to wage subsidies being made available to small businesses. "If we don't take measures now to protect the industry...and the sale and production of cannabis going forward, we put at risk all of the progress that we made from a policy perspective, and we serve a victory to the black market," said Rick Savone, senior vice-president of global government relations at Aurora, to Burnabynow.
However, there are some critical voices among the senders of the letter, such as Miller, founder of A1 Cannabis Co. "Cannabis companies have been largely mismanaged and have put themselves in some pretty precarious cash positions, where a lot of them are running out of cash or sales expectations are out there," he said. "A lot of these larger companies are using this as a great excuse to get some sort of better loan or bailout or financial support. I don't think they should be compensated or rewarded in any way for that."
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the BDC and EDC would disperse $10 billion to provide continued access to financing for those impacted by COVID-19, BNNBloomberg reports. "We are not asking for special treatment, but rather equitable treatment," the letter states.