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Ottawa’s initial estimates suggested the total pot of tax revenue from marijuana sales could eventually reach $1 billion per year.

“If there is a markup that a respective province wants to do it would be outside of that taxation model, so that was the flexibility that we as a province were looking for and I would say indeed it was what we were hearing across the country,” McNeil said.

“The two-year window will give each of us the time to go back to the table and say this is actually what policing is costing and this is what the education component is.”

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has said it wants a third of the revenues earmarked to help municipal governments handle administrative and policing costs, but how that share of the pot is divvied up will be up to the municipalities and their provincial or territorial counterparts.

The federal government has already committed more than $1 billion over five years towards pot legalization in areas like policing and border security.

When asked about the federal push to ensure enough money goes to cities and towns, Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said each province will do it their own way.

“Of course, the provinces will work with their municipalities, but it’s for us to decide what that percentage will be,” he said. “And every province is different, every city is different, so there is no preconceived amount for the provinces.”

During the meetings, the ministers also discussed the federal government’s proposed tweaks to the formula behind equalization payments, as well as the three-year review of the Canada Pension Plan. They also explored the state of the global economy and heard a presentation from Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz.

Talks also took place on a national strategy to improve the sharing of information on corporate ownership between jurisdictions, a measure designed to clamp down on tax avoidance, tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing.

“We agreed to take concrete steps to make sure that we had knowledge of who owns companies across our country so that we can do a better job at ensuring that we don’t have tax evasion, that we don’t have money laundering, that we don’t have terrorist financing in any part of our country,” Morneau said.

— with files from Terry Pedwell