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Cannabis executives say the amendment is unfair because other companies are not obligated to publicize a list of shareholders. “I am baffled by why one industry would be treated differently than investments in any other legal business in Canada,” said Terry Lake, an executive with cannabis grower Hydropothecary in Gatineau.

Hydropothecary was one of the companies cited by Sen. Serge Joyal during debates earlier this week as having received millions in funding from investors in the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.

Police authorities have warned that Canada’s medical marijuana regime is already infected by organized crime, said Joyal, and there are “serious grounds to be concerned” that the recreational market will be, too.

Lake said the senators provided no proof that Health Canada-licensed cannabis producers like Hydropothecary have any links to organized crime. Some of Hydropothecary’s investors are from outside Canada, including the Cayman Islands, but that is not illegal, he said.

“There is an insinuation that because it comes from offshore it’s related to criminal activity. There’s no evidence of that and really it’s smearing an industry without any facts to back it up.

“We are being targeted, I guess, with a different set of disclosure rules than any other business in Canada, which is a bit remarkable because, when you look at the public health impacts of cannabis versus other legal products like alcohol and tobacco, there is no question the public health effects of cannabis are much less than those two industries, which aren’t subjected to the same sort of scrutiny,” said Lake, who is a former minister of health in the B.C. government.