It鈥檚 still a murky picture, with a lot of unanswered questions, and only about five months remaining to answer them, but at least we now know who will be selling marijuana in Saskatchewan.
The provincial government has decreed, to the surprise of nobody, that private retailers will be selling pot, to be regulated by the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority.
That seemed to be the direction the government was going to take all along, even though a survey released last month showed that a significant percentage of Saskatchewan residents wanted to have pot sold partially through public vendors, similar to the way alcohol is sold.
The province has held firm, and that鈥檚 probably for the better.
Saskatchewan has had a problem with publicly-owned Crown corporations competing with private enterprise for far too long. There are jurisdictions where Crowns make sense. Marijuana is not one of them.
This province doesn鈥檛 need another sector in which publicly-owned companies are competing with private counterparts. There is no good reason to have marijuana sold by publicly-owned enterprises, other than an antiquated line about it being 鈥渢he Saskatchewan way.鈥�
Let SLGA regulate it. Maybe we鈥檒l have to rename SLGA in honour of its new jurisdiction. Call it SLMGA, or something like that.
But that should be the extent of SLGA鈥檚 involvement.
This wasn鈥檛 the only interesting component of the government鈥檚 announcement about sales. Estevan will be allocated up to two businesses that can sell marijuana, at least initially. Sites to purchase pot will be limited to communities with a population of at least 2,500 people, again at first. It means that many towns will be shut out.
And municipalities will have the option of whether they want to have pot sold in their community.
It would be surprising if Estevan, or if any other city in the province, were to say no to allowing the sale of marijuana. After all, it will just drive business to other communities, and keep the black market strong.
This is not to say that we endorse marijuana sales, or legalization of marijuana in general. But we do have to recognize it鈥檚 coming, and we shouldn鈥檛 expect city council to pass up the opportunity to have businesses that sell marijuana.
It wouldn鈥檛 be surprising, though, if a council in a smaller town or rural municipality decided to pass up the chance to have a marijuana business operating in their municipality.
The federal government鈥檚 plan to have marijuana legalized by July 1 of this year has seemed rushed from the outset. It has created questions from provincial governments, municipal governments, law enforcement agencies and others across the country.
A lot of those questions still seem to be unanswered.
Other federal governments looking at legalizing marijuana should look at mistakes that Canada has made as it pursues its own legalization agenda.
Thankfully, marijuana sales at public-owned sites isn鈥檛 one of the mistakes they鈥檒l have to learn from.
