Pot revenue predictions revealed, province won’t share dollars

The provincial government revealed its predictions on cannabis revenue in the budget this week and said it has no plans to share the money with municipalities – something for which Regina’s mayor had been pushing.

“It’s only fair that we have that cost covered, our hard costs of roadside equipment and training that’s being done by our police officers,” said Mayor Michael Fougere.

Fougere has been pushing for a while for municipalities to get a chunk of cannabis revenue. He pointed out that’s what other provinces have decided to do.

When asked about the province’s decision, Fougere said he hadn’t been told a decision had been made.

“Most of the conversation at the political level was, not that we wouldn’t receive it, that they didn’t know what the revenue was going to be or expenses, so until they knew that, they couldn’t enter the conversation,” he said.

The province gets both PST from the sale of cannabis and a chunk of the excise tax levied by the federal government. When asked, government officials said there weren’t any plans to share the pot excise tax with municipalities, but they will get a piece of the PST raised through the normal agreement to share that revenue.

However, that won’t stop Fougere. He said no one had let him know the door was closed to talks, so he wants to continue the conversation.

Budgeting for pot

This is the first Saskatchewan budget which includes cannabis in the calculations.

The province said it’s projecting $1.97 million in PST, and $3.42 million in federal excise tax, for a total of $5.39 million.

Those estimates are based on the small amount of data from 2018, so the numbers could change as more product becomes available and as more stores open.

Numbers from the third quarter of last year were also released in the budget. The province said cannabis brought in $530,000 in PST and $915,000 from the federal excise tax, for a total of $1.445 million.

There was also one-time income from the retail license lottery which brought in $1.9 million.

All of that is offset by a reported $2.2 million in expenses from cannabis.