Vancouver will push ahead with its plan to license some marijuana dispensaries and force others to close, despite a threat from Health Canada to have the RCMP raid 13 dispensaries it has singled out for attention.

Health Canada’s threats, which come in the middle of an election in which the Harper Conservatives are pitted against Liberal promises to decriminalize marijuana, sets up another showdown between Ottawa and Vancouver over health issues versus enforcement.

“Health Canada is being used as a pawn. I think they are being used as a political distraction,” said Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang, who has led the fight to require Vancouver pot shops to be licensed.

“I think this is a way for the Conservatives to motivate their base elsewhere in the country,” he said. “As far as I am concerned they can do what they want, but we are going to continue on with a plan to license some dispensaries and require those that are close to schools, community centres and each other to close down.”

Earlier this week, Health Canada issued notices to 13 dispensaries in Canada, including the B.C. Compassion Club, telling them to stop advertising access to marijuana and ordering them to shut down or face action from the RCMP.

The club, the oldest in the country, said it does not advertise.

Health Canada did not send similar messages to the rest of more than 100 illegal dispensaries operating within Vancouver.

Vancouver police, which has primary jurisdiction in the city, said it has no reason to believe the RCMP would step in, especially when the city police have said they are monitoring the dispensaries.

In a one-line statement, the RCMP says it has received no “referrals or calls for service” from Health Canada.

In its letter, Health Canada warned the recipients to “suspend all activities with controlled substances” and to promise in writing to cease operating without a federal licence.

However, in a short statement to media, Health Canada focused only on the advertising and did not indicate it had ordered the dispensaries to close. Health Canada did not respond by Friday evening to a request to clarify the discrepancy and explain why only 13 dispensaries were singled out.

It’s not the first time Health Canada has clashed with the City of Vancouver and Vancouver police over illegal substances.

The federal department and RCMP threatened to shut down any supervised injection site during planning for what eventually became Insite between 2000 and 2003, said Kash Heed, a former B.C. solicitor general and then commanding officer of the Vancouver police drug squad.

“I had a phone call from the commanding officer of federal enforcement in [RCMP] E Division, threatening that if in fact Vancouver allowed the injection site to operate, they would come in and shut me down,” said Heed.

“I called their bluff and told them, ‘Why do you have to wait until an injection site is in place, when you can come into Vancouver under your federal authority for drugs right now and bust all the people who are shooting up in the lanes in Hastings Street?’”

Ottawa and the Mounties never followed through on the threat, nor did they swoop into the Downtown Eastside to enforce drug infractions.