When the federal government introduced the Cannabis Act in April 2017, it left retail rollouts up to the individual provinces and territories. For the most part, (with the notable exception of Quebec), the provinces have mirrored cannabis sales after their liquor retail models.

It’s been five and a half months since Canada legalized recreational weed and, up until a recent trip to Alberta, I hadn’t been able to buy any in person. As a born and bred Vancouverite who now calls Toronto home, there's something that feels ironic about that.

Many provincial leaders expressed concerns about not being able to meet the government’s planned launch for legal weed sales, which was originally July 2018. That date got pushed to October 17, but BC and Ontario—both provinces with the largest illicit cannabis markets—still lagged. The former has a couple dozen legal dispensaries for the entire province, while the latter has had major hiccups with online sales and finally opened its first stores on April 1, after Doug Ford’s government scrapped the Liberals’ old plan. For now, there’s a single shop to service all 2.7 million residents of Toronto and 10 shops for the entire province of Ontario and its population of 14.3 million.

In April 2017, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told the Canadian Press that hitting the July 2018 timeline would be a challenge.

"If we get it right, it can work, but I also know that there is a lot of heavy lifting to be done to get there," she said. "It may be simple to say, 'yeah, let's legalize marijuana.' Administering it is actually very complex."

Sales in Alberta have steadily increased, and outperformed the rest of the country in November, December and January.

Fast-forward two years and, though the weed rollout is not perfect in Alberta (nor anywhere in the country), the province has gotten a lot of things right. With 75 privately-run cannabis retailers, it has the most legal stores in the country. The only reason there aren’t more is the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission has temporarily halted issuing new licences due to the country-wide weed supply issues. According to Statistics Canada, Albertans spent $7.3 million on legal weed in the first two weeks after legalization, behind Ontario ($11.7 million) and Quebec ($9.4 million). But more recent Stats Can figures show sales in Alberta have steadily increased, and outperformed the rest of the country in November, December and January, while sales in Ontario and BC have tapered. Of the $205.6 million in legal weed sales in Canada from October to January 2019, Alberta—population 4.3 million—made up $47.7 million, while Ontario and BC had $38.3 million and $6.6 million respectively.

The province is also home to licensed producer Aurora Cannabis, which has several major projects there including Aurora Sky, an 800,000 square foot facility located at the Edmonton airport; Aurora Polaris, a 300,000 square feet product development hub for edibles being built next to Sky; and Aurora Sun, a 1.2 million square foot grow being built in Medicine Hat.

When it is completed, Sun will serve as the largest production facility in Canada, and potentially the world. The LP also has a modest 55,000-square-foot grow in Cremona, Alberta. Its flagship store will be located in West Edmonton Mall and it owns a 25 percent stake in Alcanna, which operates five weed retail shops in Alberta. All of this has translated into 1,000 jobs—10 percent of which Aurora said have gone to former oil and gas employees. Another 450 people will make up the first wave recruitment to work at Aurora Sun, and the company said many more hires are expected once Sun and Polaris are built.

As a result, the province known for its socially-conservative bent is emerging as Canada’s legal weed capital, leaving BC and its world famous bud (valued at billions on the black market), and Ontario, the most populous province, in the dust.

A fledgling retail scene

Hundreds of grey-market dispensaries cropped up in BC and Ontario in the years preceding legalization. Despite the fact that they were federally illegal, Vancouver and other BC municipalities regulated these pot shops, living up to the province’s reputation of being Canada’s unofficial weed haven. Toronto opted for police raids in an attempt to shut them down, with limited success.