NBACD

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NBACD.ca

Back in November 2019 the government of the province of New Brunswick asked for interested parties to submit a RFP response. RFP (request for proposal) was published at Services NB and you could read what the Government sought from the respondents. To make a long story short the Government wanted someone to take over the retail distribution of cannabis in New Brunswick by offering a fee to the government for the opportunity to establish a monopoly distribution in the province. They had other objectives imbedded in the RFP such as a model that would eliminate the “black market” and also provide a path for entry into the legal market for the illegal operators.

It is a very confused read if you’re looking for an insight into how our government thinks, but the bottom line is that there were 8 companies who submitted a response proposal to the government call to take them out of the losing situation they had on their hands here in the province. (The government has lost north of $20 million to date) The NBACD was one of the eight. We proposed a model very much like that of BC who suggested that it should be a private/public mixed market where the government of BC would be the wholesaler, and a private network of local entrepreneur distributors would act as the retail arm of the distribution model.

The NBACD is an SRO (self regulatory organization) which will develop the standards of service and product control to protect the public, and provide the education and licencing for the producers and vendors in the province, as well as all the other apparatus necessary to provide a structure to the market, such as compliance review and audit reporting to the government partner. The beauty of this model is that the government need do nothing, to have the part of the benefit of a thriving cannabis market in New Brunswick. Answer this skill testing question; which model will sell the most pot? one that has 20 stores in the province with old stale over priced product, or 6500 retailers all across the province selling fresh product at a fair price?

We all know the answer to that one. Business rules of commerce dictate the answer and how anyone thought they could do it different and succeed is a great puzzle. Anyway to continue the story, the government was to issue feedback on the progress of the planned hand off of the monopoly to a private interest by mid-February, but missed that announcement date due to more pressing political developments that put the minority government of Premier Higgs at risk of losing power. Today in late February, this story is still unsettled. A rumour going around is that the government has decided not to give up the monopoly at all, (an option they reserved in the RFP) and may be interested to discuss the SRO proposal we introduced, that would encourage local entrepreneurs to participate in the retail side of the distribution network.

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