Government-owned liquor stores would be the best choice to sell legal pot in Ontario, the union representing LCBO staff says.

“If it is legalized, the LCBO should sell it for social responsibility,” Warren “Smokey” Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said in an e-mail Friday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to legalize marijuana, and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger has recommended it be sold in government-owned liquor stores.

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa hasn’t addressed the possibility of selling marijuana in LCBO stores, but earlier said legalization will be a “national conversation.”

“I’m not going to speculate what this will mean ... We do know it’s complicated and we know that it’s going to involve a lot of different ministries, activity, jurisdictions, and looking at what happens in other parts of the world,” Sousa said.

Dave Bryans, CEO of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association (OCSA), said he hopes the conversation is more open and transparent than the one the government held when deciding where to sell beer.

Although OCSA pushed hard for the right of its members to sell beer, the provincial government offered it to only a select number of grocery stores and the major beer companies still control the market, he said.

Bryans noted convenience stores, unlike the LCBO, are subject to mystery shopper checks from two oversight organizations — the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and public health units — to ensure they sell tobacco and lottery tickets only to those who are of legal age.

OCSA members haven’t discussed the possibility of selling marijuana because they believe it won’t happen for at least three to four years, he said.

However, Bryan warns that Ontario could become a major producer of contraband marijuana, just as it has contraband cigarettes, if the product is legalized.

The provincial government has shown little interest in confronting the more than 50 cigarette factories on reserves, he said.

“There’s no political will of the government to fix contraband (tobacco) in Ontario, so should this product end up in the aboriginal reserves and end up being sold on the streets ... there’d be no taste for the government to fix that either,” Bryans said. “I’m not sure we have the right controls in place to have another smoking-like product.”

He says 30% of cigarettes smoked in Ontario are contraband.

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HOW TO PUT OUT CONTRABAND CIGARETTES

1) Ontario PC MPP Todd Smith introduced a private member’s bill this week to strip the driver’s licence of those convicted of transporting commercial amounts of contraband tobacco and also allow for their vehicles to be sold and some of the profits returned to the investigating police service.

Private member’s bills rarely become law, but the government has promised to look at it.

Two) Finance Minister Charles Sousa introduced a budget bill Wednesday that would allow for tighter controls over raw leaf tobacco.

The bill would create a bale-labelling system, including record-keeping requirements, and establish reporting requirements for the import, export and transportation of raw leaf tobacco.