Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice, regarding cannabis. Madam Speaker, we find ourselves here, a year and a half after cannabis legalization, with the promise being, after one year, we would have private cannabis stores in the Northwest Territories or at least be along the road. My question is: when will we see our first private cannabis store in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I acknowledge that there certainly has been a delay since even, I believe, the date that I provided to the House with respect to some aspects of the process. In order to have a cannabis store, there was first an RFQ, request for qualifications, that was sent out this summer, and then there needed to be an RFP, a request for proposals. That process was due out in January. I acknowledge that it's now not January. I am assured that that will be complete and that that will public this month. I will certainly ensure that I am doing my best to follow up on that date. At that point, how quickly private individuals or private companies are able to develop their progress per store will be in the hands of those individuals or companies. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister of Justice's response that we will see those RFPs out this month, and I will encourage my constituents who are interested to apply to that process. I had a constituent attend the uptown liquor store the other day, the only place to buy cannabis legally in town, and there was, in fact, no cannabis there. My question for the Minister of Finance: why, 18 months after legalization, do we still not have our procurement process in order?
There have actually not been very many stock outages since January of 2019, though there was indeed some delay recently. I am told that the resupply did come in last Friday and that it is something that we are continuously monitoring. Staff from the Department of Finance are involved in ensuring that the supply is regular and, indeed, I believe met with one of the repliers just last week. It is certainly our hope that, as we continue that relationship, that there should be hopefully fewer challenges for those seeking to avail themselves.
I want to express the issue here is that when someone attends a legal cannabis store and there is no cannabis, they go to the black market, which I can assure the Minister of Justice is still very much alive and well in the Northwest Territories. That means we are allowing criminals to continue to sell cannabis as well as not gaining the tax revenue needed from this. My question to the Minister of Justice is: what is currently happening to find new sources that can meet the demand?
The Northwest Territories Liquor and Cannabis Commission is tasked with identifying new suppliers, where they're available. It is a challenge that's being faced by our other territorial and provincial partners. It's one that we'll continue to talk to them about their own practices and see if there are options in our procurement that we haven't considered. As I say, I am alive to the ultimate impacts of not having supply and what that does. Again, it's a fairly new system across Canada, so hopefully, as all the provinces and territories work that through, that we will see a general improvement to the legal supply to all provinces and territories, including ours.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Frame Lake.
