Tracking cannabis costs – we need your feedback!

The legalization of cannabis for recreational use will have significant fiscal impacts on municipal services such as policing and bylaw enforcement, municipal administration, public health, emergency services, and other services that deal with community impacts. While AUMA has been strongly advocating for municipalities to receive a fair share of cannabis excise tax to offset these costs, the province has not yet discussed plans to share cannabis tax revenue, nor has it responded to our advocacy on this topic.

Accordingly, AUMA is developing a tool to support municipalities in tracking the costs associated with cannabis legalization. We understand that tracking these costs is an administrative burden and even with a tool to help, not all our members will have the capacity to track their costs. However, any information you can share about the financial impacts of legalization on your municipality will help us intensify our advocacy and build the case for receiving a portion of the cannabis excise tax.

Based on the input we received at our Summer Municipal Leaders’ Caucus, we have developed a draft Tracking the Costs of Cannabis Legalization Tool for your review.  We welcome all feedback, so feel free to share the draft tool with your municipal staff, particularly those who have been working on cannabis legalization.

If you have any comments or questions about the tool, please contact Kelly Santarossa at ksantarossa [at] auma.ca (ksantarossa[at]auma[dot]ca). The deadline to submit feedback is Friday, July 20. Once the tool is finalized, we will advertise its release through the Digest, and the tool will be posted on AUMA’s cannabis webpage.