Marijuana tax revenues after four years have finally met federal estimates tabled when Parliament legalized cannabis in 2018. Statistics Canada figures did not account for any increased costs of policing, licensing, zoning and insurance, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“Sales of recreational cannabis by provincial cannabis authorities and other retail outlets were $4 billion in 2021-2022 equivalent to $131 per person of legal age to consume cannabis,” said a StatsCan report Control And Sale Of Alcoholic Beverages And Cannabis April 1, 2021 To March 31, 2022. “Yukon had the highest per person cannabis sales ($291) followed by Alberta ($210) and Saskatchewan ($185) while Québec had the lowest ($59) followed by Manitoba ($107) and Nova Scotia ($125).”.Total revenues for provinces, territories and the federal treasury from sales and excise taxes were $1.6 billion. Parliament on legalizing marijuana taxed it at $1 per gram, about 15%, plus sales taxes..Liberal MP Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, ON), then-parliamentary secretary for justice, estimated at 2018 hearings of the Senate national finance committee that legal sales would total about $4 billion a year. “It’s a little bit challenging to determine what the market is,” testified Blair. “Organized crime does not share its data with us.”.The federal share of tax revenue was capped at $100 million annually for two years. StatsCan said it had no total net revenue figures for the period from 2018 to 2021. “This is the first year Statistics Canada is releasing data for government revenue from the sale of cannabis,” said Anna Maiorino, spokesperson for the agency..Department of Public Safety Access To Information memos written at the time of legalization questioned whether tax gains would be offset by higher policing and enforcement costs. “A legalized marijuana regime will have implications for law enforcement actions,” said a 2016 Memorandum For The Minister..The Parliamentary Budget Office in a 2016 report Legalized Cannabis: Fiscal Considerations predicted modest net tax revenues. “It will be millions and millions of dollars, not billions and billions,” said Jean-Denis Fréchette, then-chief budget officer. The report did not account for higher policing and insurance costs..“There really isn’t much room for taxes other than the HST, and even with the HST one has to be careful not to move above the illegal price,” Mostafa Askari, then-assistant budget officer, told reporters at the time. “As soon you move above the illegal market price, based on our estimates, you lose a lot of market share to the illegal market so that defeats the purpose.”.In Colorado, where cannabis was legalized in 2014 and taxed at 29% revenues totaled $118 million a year though it was unclear if there was “actual net economic benefit or harm” due to higher policing and licensing costs, according to a 2016 Public Safety Canada report Cannabis Policy Performance Metrics.
