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Photo by Jack Boland / Jack Boland/Toronto Sun

What’s Kathleen Wynne’s idea of how all this should work?

“Government is always inefficient…so when they want to create this Ontario cannabis bureaucracy, they’re actually forcing the taxpayer to finance hundreds of millions of dollars building out a bureaucracy, for a business model the government admits is doomed to fail. The Liberals of Ontario have saidthey know they can’t undercut the current black market price. They’ve also said they know they won’t make much moneyif they continue down this path, and their whole model is to prevent people from using cannabis. As far as a business model goes — one funded by taxpayers — it’s doomed to fail. And the taxpayers lose.”

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And Doug Ford’s approach?

“When Doug Ford says, ‘let’s support private retail,’ he’s saying that instead of spending millions of taxpayer dollars to build a bureaucracy doomed to fail, why don’t we allow the existing industry to put that money into the legitimate economy, rather than keeping it criminalized?Why not allow those business owners to pay taxes, hire people, generate tax revenue off basic sales tax, etc? If you allow a private industry to flourish, you could create hundreds of millions, if not billions, in tourism, agriculture, research and development, advertising, packaging, branding, events and more. There are so many opportunities, but only if we don’t restrict and limit. And the Liberals want to restrict and limit. But Doug Ford wants to open it up to the free market, the way it should be…the Ontario Liberals under Wynne say cannabis is dangerous and a threat to society, and we have to prevent people from using it, and we have to restrict and limit it — that’s prohibition! That’s not legalization.”

Photo by Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS

How do you reassure people who fear the legalization of pot?

“Cannabis itself is not dangerous. It’s the messaging of the government that has made it that way…there’s still a stigma. As long as the government continues to say that marijuana is a threat to public safety and health, they’re spreading fear. Fear will discourage good Canadians from accessing something safer than the dangerous substances the government promotes and profits from, like alcohol, opioids and tobacco.”

lbraun@postmedia.com