Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said the province isn’t ready to talk about selling cannabis in liquor stores.
”It would be premature to discuss what will happen with the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana,” Sousa said.
Ontario Public Service Employees Union president Warren Thomas said late last week that the best place to sell legalized recreational cannabis would be in the existing, government-owned liquor stores.
“There would not be any need to reinvent the wheel,” Thomas said “For one thing they have the social responsibility part covered — they do age checks, they do refusals if somebody’s intoxicated.”
But the Ontario government is waiting for direction from Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, who have promised to legalize cannabis for Canadians.
“When it comes to marijuana, that’s up to the federal government and we’ll have that discussion ongoing,” Sousa said.
The suggestion to sell marijuana at the LCBO stores was met with reaction from opposition political parties int he province.
“Well if (government) stores are going to sell pot, at least we know quality will be poor, the price high and the hours lousy,” tweeted PC MPP Tim Hudak.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she didn’t expect cannabis to be sold in liquor stores anytime soon.
“Lots of questions and very few answers at this point,” Horwath said. “I’m kind of looking forward to seeing how the feds are going to deal with it”