marijuana

It’s been nearly two years in the making, but Kapuskasing is all but ready to enter the pot industry.

Mayor Al Spacek says they’re awaiting approval to open a medical marijuana plant near the airport.  He was told it takes anywhere between 18-24 months to get approval from the federal government.

The submission was made in January 2015.

Spacek says he’s gotten a lot of support from the community at open houses, and emphasizes that the facility will have plenty of security.

“It has what they call Level 9 security, which is similar to what banks use to protect their interests,” he added.

Once open, Spacek says the plant will create between 40 and 60 “well paying” jobs.

As for the economic impact?

“The economic spinoff of that is in the neighbourhood of around $12 million, by the time you factor in salaries, purchases and other operational issues,” he said, “So it’s a very positive impact on a community our size.”

Spacek says the idea started when he heard the feds were steering away from giving medical marijuana licenses to people to grow their own pot, in favour of large concentrated facilities.

It just so happens Kapuskasing acquired an agricultural research station from the federal government a couple years ago.

“I immediately thought this would be an excellent facility for this type of production, and we’d be able to use that to the benefit of our community,” Spacek said.

After a number of discussions with several groups, Spacek said they waited it out and partnered with CannAssist.

CannAssist is a Toronto-based producer who, according to their website, “is in the process of obtaining a license to produce and distribute medicinal marijuana.”

From there, Spacek says it became evident they’d be better off building a new facility, rather than retrofitting the existing one so the decision was made to move the project down the road to the airport.

In terms of having a plant in town, Spacek says it’s not an industry that’s competitive from one community to the next.

“There’s going to be very large demand for the high-grade, pharma-type medical marijuana product because of the way the government’s changed the way it disperses it,” he said.

Spacek goes on to say there’s plenty of opportunity for other communities in the North to jump on the medical marijuana bandwagon.

“I believe Timmins and Kirkland Lake are also interested in doing a project like that, so it’s a great opportunity for Northeastern Ontario.”

Filed under: Local News