Thanks to Canada’s troubled export sector, shareholders in Village Farms International (TSX:VFF)(NASDAQ: VFF) can rest easy. Marijuana legalization is safe, and it will only get better for these enterprises.
Canada is hurting to increase exports, and marijuana may be the country’s best chance to improve its financial situation. Canada’s GDP is only the tenth largest in the world.
Developing countries including Brazil, India, and China all have larger GDPs than Canada. Worse, Canada had a goods trade deficit of $28 billion in 2017.
The conservatives, liberals, NDP, and the Green Party all know that Canada needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace. By legalizing marijuana so extensively, Canada is now a first-mover in the cannabis market. By moving first, Canada is at a huge advantage to maintain control of the global marketplace.
Regardless of platform, none of the candidates will jeopardize the country’s chances of reducing its goods trade deficit and diversifying the economy. Here’s a breakdown of each party’s publicized stance and what they predict about the future of the cannabis market.
NDP
The New Democrats have been early supporters of personal choice in marijuana consumption. The party feels that marijuana legalization is the best choice for Canada. None of the NDP candidates will reverse recent recreational and medicinal marijuana legalization.
Health Canada licenses are safe under the New Democrats. The New Democrat Party have also been early advocators to expunge public records of past nonviolent weed crimes. Taking a look at marijuana sales, this party must have many fans in Canada.
Green Party
Canada has effective laws to ensure the safety of drug users and help them recover from addiction. In true Canadian fashion, the Green Party emphasizes that drug addiction is an illness, not a crime. Like the New Democrats, the Green Party does not intend to roll back marijuana legalization.
With a business-friendly platform, the Green Party is more likely to make marijuana laws more lenient – not less. In fact, the Green Party is a strong supporter of removing the sales tax on medicinal products, including marijuana.
The New Democrat Party agrees with Green Party leadership that the government should eliminate the marijuana tax.
Conservatives
In 2015, the conservatives claimed to be adamantly opposed to cannabis legalization in public. Behind closed doors, we don’t know what they truly believed. Today, the entire party has flip-flopped and now Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says that cannabis legalization is safe as far as the conservative party is concerned.
Today, the conservatives, according to Scheer, also support cleaning the records of Canadian citizens who have been convicted of marijuana possession. If conservatives cannot be relied upon to be consistent, constituents can be assured that they only aim to please.
Liberals
The liberals first advocated for cannabis legalization on the belief that legalization would make it more difficult for teenagers to consume. The liberals, under Justin Trudeau’s watch, decided it would be more practical to legalize weed to increase regulation.
The second reason the liberal party initially supported marijuana legalization involves taxation and government revenue. The liberals understood that taxing marijuana sales would help the government with desperately needed funds to keep it running.
Trudeau also claims that it would help re-direct marijuana funds away from organized criminals; in light of the CannTrust scandal, it seems that it just made it easier for criminals to conduct business.
We also don’t know how much money from violent cartels in Latin America are making their way into Canadian stocks and bank accounts, but that’s beside the point.
Marijuana, under liberal control, is also safe.
