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Chief William Seymour has said it seems like one arm of the government is delaying the licence, so that another arm can outmanoeuvre the nation for local approval for the region’s largest shopping plaza, north of Duncan.

The matter was made worse by the government’s cannabis branch writing an April letter to the District of North Cowichan urging it to abandon the Cowichan Tribes application and focus on the government store because Cowichan Tribes had yet to obtain government approval.

Farnworth denied there’s a coordinated campaign.

“I can’t walk you through the (security check) process because I’m not allowed to,” he said. “But I can tell you this the idea that an application is being slow walked because the government wants to have a prime spot is absolute nonsense. I could care less if there’s a public store in Cowichan. That’s not the issue.”

It’s unclear what the issue is about because the provincial security process, designed to weed out links to organized crime, is shrouded in secrecy. “That I can’t talk about,” said Farnworth. “The application is still in the process and is still being assessed.”

The Cowichan Tribes was underwhelmed by the explanation.

“I would like to be optimistic that the province will pull back on their application to allow for Cowichan Tribes to have an equal opportunity,” said Jodee Dick, the tribes’ land manager. “But I was optimistic that they would honour a government to government process and look how that ended up.