Canada’s indigenous people fight for cannabis rights

IN THEIR struggle to regain control over resources and spur economic growth, Canada’s indigenous communities have found an unlikely ally: cannabis.

Facing higher levels of poverty and unemployment than the general population, many indigenous people see the marijuana trade as a valuable source of income.

Canada became the first industrialised nation to legalise recreational cannabis on Wednesday.

While indigenous entrepreneurs have already been selling cannabis for years, they say legalisation could allow them to build fully legal businesses and tap into a market that spans the whole country.

And that could strengthen communities’ fight for self-governance, said Samantha McGuire, manager of cannabis shop the Organic Green Dispensary in Tyendinaga, an indigenous Mohawk community about 250km north-east of Toronto.

“The production and distribution of cannabis is our sovereign indigenous right,” she said. “It is about self-determination.”

Tyendinaga is at the epicentre of Canada’s burgeoning indigenous-run cannabis trade. Although it has fewer than 5,000 residents, according to the latest census data from 2016, the Mohawk Territory has more than 30 marijuana stores.

From “Peacemaker 420” to “Smoke on the Water”, most shops are located inside mobile homes parked around the rural community, beside a major highway connecting the cities of Toronto and Montreal.

And the trade is profitable, local businesses say. Canadians spent more than C$5 billion on cannabis last year (when it was still illegal), according to government estimates.

What is less clear is what will happen to stores like Ms McGuire’s now that legalisation has taken effect.

Canada’s provincial governments, rather than the national authorities, are tasked with deciding who can sell cannabis and under what conditions.

In Ontario, the country’s most populous province and where Tyendinaga is located, recreational cannabis can currently only be sold through a governmentowned online portal.

The provincial government aims to allow private outlets to sell cannabis by 2019. But Ontario Attorney-General Caroline Mulroney said in August that anyone operating a store like Ms McGuire’s after October 17 will not be able to apply for a license to run a legal store.

“The government doesn’t want to be doing businesses with dispensaries that have been operating illegally,” she said, although she did not mention what would happen to cannabis stores operating on indigenous reserves.

But Ms McGuire and other indigenous cannabis traders say provincial rules do not apply to them because historic treaties signed between Mohawks and the national government supersede provincial rules.

Indigenous people have sovereignty to decide what happens on their land, said Ms McGuire, and that includes continuing to sell cannabis even after the October 17 deadline.

“As far as self-determination goes, cannabis has been part of our ancestors’ history and it is something we have always had the right to distribute, use, possess,” she said.