 This is now starting. All attendees are in listen-only mode. Good morning and welcome back to our regular participants and welcome to anyone who's a first-time participant of our economic development webinar series. My name is Jessica Ritchie. I'm with the Regional Programs and Engagement Branch of the Ministry of Jobs, Trade and Technology. And I'll be providing the technical support for today's webinar. I'm located in Victoria, British Columbia on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Laquangen people known today as the Esquimalt and Songhus First Nation. Today's webinar is going to be on small-scale licensed cannabis production in British Columbia. It's a topic that we've had a lot of requests about and we know that there's a gap in the information and we're hoping that today it's going to help solve some of those questions that people have and provide resources and information that you'll be able to use if you are supporting people that are trying to get into the industry or you're someone who's interested in getting into it yourself. I'm going to go over some of the housekeeping just in case you haven't used the go-to webinar platform before. I'll introduce our speakers and then we're going to get into it. We have a ton of great content to cover today so you're not going to be hearing too much from me. So if you haven't used this platform before, first thing that you should know is that all of our audience members are muted. This just provides a little bit of protection for us from technical issues but if you have any questions or is a question box, please type your questions into that question pane. We will be having a question and answer period at the end of the session and if you're having any technical challenges during the session, type your questions in there and we'll be happy to reach out and try and help you. The other thing that you should know, if you're having any challenges with your audio, it may be a network issue. You don't have to use your computer. You do have the option to use your phone. You can just use the radio button for phone call. Click on that and you'll be able to, a phone number will pop up with a pin and you'll be able to join the audio that way and then you can follow along with the visuals on your computer. You should also be aware, we are going to be recording this session if you're seeing really valuable information here and want to share it. We'll be posting this as well as the presentation slides on our website, gov.bc.ca, backslash economic development. You can look under our section for BC Ideas Exchange and it shows all of our past webinars. If you're new to our webinar series, you'll also see our entire library of webinars and the other content that we've covered. So if you're in the economic development world, you're looking to support small businesses or anything like that, check out our other webinars because you may see some value there if you're seeing value today. And that brings us through our housekeeping and I would just like to introduce, we have three great speakers who have a variety of topics regarding small scale licensed cannabis. We're going to start first with BC's cannabis legislation and regulation secretariat. They'll be speaking to the province's approach to cannabis legalization and regulation. This is just going to be about 10 minutes and just kind of provide an overview of what the province is doing, especially if you're not aware or you're new to this topic. Then we're going to hear from Shannon Ross. She's the Cannabis Business Transformation Advisor with Community Futures. And she's going to be sharing information about business supports that are available to people looking to enter this industry, as well as some of the things that communities and as well as growers should be thinking about when they're entering the licensed small scale cannabis production. And then finally, we're going to hear from Tamara Follett. She's one of Canada's first federally licensed micro cultivators and she's going to be sharing her experience on the application process and how she was successful. This is such a new area. And we haven't heard from a lot of people that have gone through the whole application process. So she's a great resource to share why she was successful and some of the things that she did well that made her be one of the first people that had her application approved. And then at the end of the session, like I said, we'd save some time for people to ask questions throughout the presentation. Or if your question isn't answered at the end of the session, people are going to be sharing their contact information and then resources where other questions can go to. Be sure that you're jotting those down so that you're able to touch base if you have further questions after and you can use the resources that are being shared. If you don't have time, like I said, we will be presenting, posting the slides at the end as well. So that'll be a second opportunity to get that information that was shared. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to BC's cannabis legislation and regulation secretariat. Thanks, Jessica. So I'm just going to give a quick overview of BC's approach to legalization and regulation. Next, there we go. So this is a quick overview of the provincial priorities. I think probably most of you that are from BC will be familiar with these. So these are the goals that the province set up and largely the focus in the lead up to legalization was on public health and safety. But from the very outset of knowing that legalization was coming, BC also set the goal of supporting economic development as a priority for the province. And you'll hear about that more later in the webinar. Next slide, please. So this is just a really high level overview. It is not comprehensive at all of Health Canada's responsibilities under the Cannabis Act. So they issue licenses for cannabis production and processing, including micro and standard cultivation, licensed producer sales of medical cannabis, as well as licenses for analytical testing and research. Health Canada also regulates all cannabis products. That's medical and non-medical. This includes products that are legal for sale. So for example, probably most people are familiar that three new classes of cannabis products have been legalized for production and commercial sale. So that's Edible's extracts and topicals. So Health Canada was the one who set those regulations. They also regulate product safety, quality labeling, packaging, as well as promotion and display. And the federal government is still responsible for the medical cannabis regime. That didn't change with legalization. They continue to regulate that. So under federal legislation, patients can access medical cannabis in one of three ways. So one way is directly from a licensed producer that is authorized by Health Canada. The other way is to register with Health Canada so that they can produce their own medical cannabis. And the third option is to designate someone else to produce that medical cannabis for them. Next slide, please. So in BC, we have two main pieces of legislation that provide for legal safe access to non-medical cannabis. The Cannabis Control and Licensing Act is the piece of legislation that sets the legal age of 19 to purchase and consume cannabis. It also allows adults to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis in a public place. It prohibits cannabis smoking and vaping everywhere. Tobacco smoking and vaping are prohibited, as well as playgrounds, sports fields, skate parks, and other places where children commonly gather. It prohibits the use of cannabis on school properties and in vehicles. It also authorizes adults to grow up to four non-medical cannabis plants at home in their household. The Act also established the private retail licensing regime. And it also provided enforcement authority to a new enforcement unit called the Community Safety Unit that is within the Ministry of Public Safety and Slister General. And they are primarily focused on illegal cannabis retail sales. And the second piece of legislation is the Cannabis Distribution Act. And so that act establishes the Liquor Distribution Branch as the provincial wholesale distributor of non-medical cannabis. And it also establishes the government-run retail sales in-store and online. This is the BC Cannabis Stores. Next slide, please. So in BC, the responsibility for cannabis is pretty much split between two ministries. So Ministry of Public Safety and Slister General. That is where the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Secretary resides. So the Secretary was established in April of 2017 and is BC Central Coordinating Body for Cannabis Policy and Regulation. And then as I mentioned, there's the Community Safety Unit. And this is the group that has the enforcement authority to take action against illegal cannabis retailers. And then there's also the Security Programs Division. So this group is responsible for carrying out security screenings for cannabis retail applicants and also those who work in licensed retail stores, government cannabis stores, and other government cannabis-related operations. So then under Ministry of Attorney General, that's where we have Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch. So they're responsible for processing the private retail applications and regulating legal retailers. And then we have LDB. And as mentioned, they're the wholesale distributor of non-medical cannabis. And they are also responsible for running the BRICS and Mortar BC Cannabis Stores as well as the online site. Next slide, please. So if you have any questions, this is how you can contact the Cannabis Secretariat. We're happy to help where we can. So that's our email address. You can also go to our Get Cannabis Clarity website. And there's also email contacts on there for the Community Safety Unit, the Secretariat, LDB, as well as Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch. So that main landing page there has contact for all of us. And that concludes my part of the presentation. Fantastic. Thank you so much. So like I said before, there will be a question and answer period at the end of the session. So if you have questions for the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Secretariat, absolutely contact them via email or you maybe have an opportunity to ask those at the question and answer period at the end of our session. So with that, we're going to move on to our next presenter, Shannon Ross from Community Futures. So I'm going to hand it over to her. My name is Shannon Ross and I work for Community Futures here in Nelson, British Columbia. And I am the Cannabis Business Transition Advisor. And I'm also a farmer. I've been involved in agriculture for over 20 years. And I am an advocate for medical cannabis and like to spend time educating people on cannabis. Community Futures has been in Nelson since 1985 and we assist people with business training, loans, counseling and resources. And we also bring community partners together to work for as common goals sustainable community economic development. Our local region, both regional and municipal government has been very supportive of the cannabis industry. In our region in the Kootenays, it's estimated that approximately 30% or more of our economy is reliant on the cannabis industry. So our municipal government in particular spent a lot of time doing kind of stakeholder and public input. And so they were very supportive. The next slide, please. So here's an overview of the licensing. There are different ways to get involved with cannabis. So you can grow cannabis on a large scale, which is a standard cultivation license or on a smaller scale, which is a micro cultivation license. And you can also apply for a nursery license and you can also process if you want to make products or if you want to sell, you can either a standard processing license or micro. You can also get a license for medical purposes and a little testing and research and development. So operating a cannabis business other than cultivation and processing or retail, there are many other opportunities. And small business in the cannabis sector, the craft sector is, there's a lot of opportunity there. In 2018, 98% of all businesses in BC were considered small businesses. And this represents approximately 500,000 small businesses employing approximately 1 million people and accounts for 44% of the total employment in BC. Micro businesses, those with less than five employees, comprise about 83% of small businesses. And it estimates that the cannabis economic contribution to BC is $1.3-2.5 billion, more than forestry production. Next slide, please. There are many small businesses in the cannabis sector. There are a lot of ancillary businesses that support this industry. And I'm just going to quickly go through the next few slides because I don't have a lot of time, but the next few slides just highlight some of the construction workers, plumbers, electricians, technology, fencing, security contractors, bookkeepers. I'm keeping the next slide. So there are lots of other ancillary businesses that support this sector. The next slide, please. And the next slide. Lawyers is another one. There we go. Dry flour is just one product that... And there's also the concentrate market, which is estimated to comprise 56% or more. That is edibles, tinctures, topples, beverages. Dry cannabis is just a small, not a small section, but just a piece of it. And I think there'll be more movement going towards the concentrate market as it's now just been legalized. A lot of people don't just smoke cannabis. So there's many other uses, as well as high CBD content. So I think we're going to see a lot more businesses. Next slide, please. Where will you fit in? If you're interested in getting involved with the cannabis industry, I'm going to focus a lot on the cultivation aspect of it. You can consider outdoor cultivation versus indoor cultivation. It's good to research the various models and the startup costs and the operating costs of each model. Indoor facilities are capital-intensive, high risk. They require a broad suit of business skills and the indoor model does provide year-round income. Output cultivation can support other farm activities and requires less capital, and you can scale up as your business grows. Market height means many firms enter the market, but efficient operations and regulatory compliance will create sustainable enterprises. Next slide, please. Before you go too far on a piece of property, your zoning is an important aspect. So before you get too far ahead of your business, it's important to understand what zone your property is located in. And if it is allowed here in our region, you can have cannabis facilities, industrial, commercial, agricultural, and the ALR. So there are quite a few options here. The other part is water. How much water is required and what your water license is. And is it good to test your water and to make sure that it's audible. And also, it's really important to know if your power company can provide you with the power that you need, especially if you're looking at doing more of an indoor production. And so usually what power companies are requiring is somewhat of a facility design, knowing what your power consumption is, having electrician come in and review everything, and then call your power company and provide them with as much information as possible. And just make sure that they can provide you with the power that is required depending on where you're located. And just also looking at your building. And are you going to be renovating your building or building a new building and to look closely at the different costs associated with that. And of course, looking at the good production practices and regulations and what is required in the next slide. So it is important to hire accountants and lawyers when you're setting up your business. They do help reduce your tax burden and they ensure agreements are binding and represent the interest of their clients. They have seen thousands of businesses and they know what works and what doesn't. And it's important for shareholders, their partnership agreements. It's important to have things written down. It's also good to hire a bookkeeper and also project managers are, I see some of the larger facilities that are being built. Having a project manager really helps keep things organized. And there's definitely something to be said about hiring expertise when starting a larger kind of micro calculation facility. The next slide. The excise goodies. So this is the SIN tax. It is applied and remitted by the license processor upon packaging. CRA license is required to sell to distribute to the consumer. It requires a background check. It requires a business plan submission. And the CRA bond for micro cultivator is $5,000 and for a standard processor, sorry for micro processor and for a standard processor, it can be up to 5 million as a percentage of your estimated revenue. You can, there's only provided if you want to look more into the excise student. Okay, so possible sources of capital. If you have savings, friends and family are the common source of investment. You can sell your assets and your property. Many features. We do have a finance department and we are currently lending money to micro cultivators. There are banks and credit unions. However, that has been a bit more challenging for a lot of the micro cultivators and I do encourage banks and credit unions to get to understand the relations and all of that. And private investment. The next slide. Risk mitigation is an important piece of looking for becoming a cultivator or a processor. And family to comply with the regulations is one of the major risks for this business. So staying on top of booking thing, your inventory management and your sales tracking. It can be a bit daunting or intimidating the amount of record keeping that is required to operate a campus facility. There are solutions in place. There are software companies out there that do make the record keeping and monthly reports quite easy. So I do encourage people not to get too intimidated and to do your research on software companies. Analytical testing. So if you have a processing license and you're selling cannabis, you do have to send in samples to analytical labs and make sure that you have pesticides and mold and mildew metals and pathogens. So as a cultivator, it's really important to look at the products that you're using and make sure that they are products that our own Canada's recommended pesticides, for example, and just make sure that you do your research on what products that you can use as a cultivator. Fire. So when you're building your operations, make sure that they do meet fire and best practices and you can get a fire smart prescription for your property and make sure that you mitigate the risk of wildfire. Insufficient startup capital. So it's important to remember in addition to your construction budget that you need operating capital. If you're going to a processing license, you need your bond for your excise pass and you also need a contingency plan for your excise. Things to consider for cultivators. If you're considering hiring someone to write your business plan, be mindful and take the time to understand your business. Understand your startup and your operating budget and plan to have financing to operate until your revenue comes in. A generic business plan is difficult to approach. Talk to neighbors. Honesty goes a long way. Have a plan to share and discuss common concerns such as traffic, like clean air pollution and how to mitigate the risks. We have found through personal experience, I've noticed that cultivators that are into their neighbors and it's good to contact your neighbor and say, listen, this is my plan. This is the kind of operation I want to do, whether it's outdoor or indoor. Everybody pretty much has the same common concerns. How many people are going to be driving down the road? Is there going to be light pollution? Is there going to be smell? All of those things can be mitigated. A micro-cultivation is going to have a maximum of five employees. It's going to be drastically affecting the traffic in this area. So it's good to have those conversations and that will mitigate the risk. One way to prevent neighbors from getting too concerned about the facility. There is a lot of education that needs to be done. Many people have grown up in the age of read or madness. So it is important to educate your community if you can. If you're a cultivator, write articles and post-educational workshops, get out there in your community, and work to educate people on cannabis. Forming an alliance. So here in the Nelson region, the Community Region, the United Cannabis Association was formed and it's a non-profit organization. And they hosted cannabis medium and brought together 100 stakeholders in federal and provincial government. It was a powerful resource. And it's important as cultivators to form an alliance. People really work together and work together. Sorry about that. So we have an existing medical cultivation license under the EMPR and MMAR license. And you're building a facility and you want to incorporate your genetics. You do have an opportunity to transfer your genes into your new recreational license. It's important to prepare for this. If you have tests or disease, you need to prioritize cleaning up your genetics. Possible tissue cultures. You can contact labs. Really take the time to research and make a plan. So when it's time to transfer your plants, you're not contaminating your new facility. That can need to crop failure. It can need to failing analytical tests. So it's very important to really prepare for this. I personally do recommend the integrated pest management and looking at predators, insects, and so for cultivators, just get really educated on pest needs and mismanagement. The good production practices. I kind of see the good production practices are the foundation of regulations are built upon. The good production practices, I do recommend anybody who is looking to cultivate cannabis or process, start from the good production practices. I really find for myself and for many other people that printing the cannabis act and the cannabis regulations and the good practices printed in a binder. I know it sounds daunting, but read it and highlight it and get to know the cannabis regulations specifically if you're going to be a cultivator. I found for myself that I accomplished this by creating a habit. Instead of sitting down and looking at the hundreds of pages that are necessary to read, I just started with about 15 minutes of a day after dinner and just did that daily and got my way through it. And it also dispelled a lot of myths and helped me really understand the regulations and why they're put in place. The one thing to say about the good production practices and regulations is every industry is related to protect, even in health and safety. The next slide. Your eChat systems and environmental controls are the key to successfully growing indoors. This is very costly and it's important to budget correctly for this. And consider the servicing of HVAC equipment. Like for example, we are in a very rural area. So it is good to have extra equipment in place in case something fails. Any large fluctuation in temperature and humidity in environments for pest and disease could be the crop failure. So when you are but hire someone for HVAC system, ask the company how long it's going to take for them to service it and to pick some of their conditioner and also use technology to monitor your environment. And make sure that as a cultivator, you're always aware of your community. Lighting is important to your homework on lighting and ask a lot of questions and ask for references, talk to people who have experienced with the lighting company that you're considering. And be positive. Obtaining your cultivation license is possible. And consider the difference between outdoor cultivation and scale up, risk what you can afford to lose. Light deprivation greenhouses are an affordable way to enter and things to consider for governments. Acknowledgement of the legacy industry. It's necessary for trust to be developed between the government and the legacy industry to move forward. And there is still a lot of stigma. 2011 Federal Department of Justice reports study the random sample of 500 marijuana production cases and only 5% of the files yielded any indication that the offender was affiliated with organized crime industry cases. This is a Canadian drug policy coalition report of 2016. The legacy industry consists of good people and very few are affiliated with it. And the cannabis industry has a huge economic impact. The cannabis act and regulations are designed to mitigate common public concerns and risks. So read it and cannabis production should not be feared. The barriers are high for micro cultivators and processors. So it has been very difficult for a small independent craft cultivators to enter into this industry. And this is mainly because of Health Canada requires a fully built facility before accepting a license application. Financing is difficult to obtain because of this and traditional lenders are risk-reversed. So I think that it's important for the municipal and provincial governments to understand the challenges that the micro cultivators and processors do face and to perhaps find ways to support it and as well as have compassion for the challenges. It's also important to focus on education regarding cannabis. It is a plant and it has many uses which include medicine and fiber, food, building materials. It is a renewable resource. We need to be progressive and consider the many applications and use of this plant. There is still a lot of fear and stigma around cannabis production and this can only be addressed through education and research. Yes, right, so there's further resources. You'll be able to get a hold of this on the website the next slide. In the future, say our small business BC, Oh, Quotland University has some great programs. I've completed the cannabis production facility and production management course. I found it quite useful. So I encourage people who are interested to look at their online courses. And that's it. Thank you very much. Fantastic, Shannon. Thank you so much for sharing those resources and that information. We will likely come back to you with some questions at the end of the session, but we're going to move on to our next presenter, Tamara Follett, and she's going to be speaking about her experiences with this application process and how she was successful. So I'll hand it over to you, Tamara. Hello, everybody and welcome. I obtained my micro cultivation license on Friday the 13th in September. It took nine long months, but that process, I believe, has sped up some. I achieved this for just under $15,000 without incurring debt and without getting investors, but I had my own fenced land with a standalone building on it and my township was welcoming to the industry. They saw it as a potential cottage industry that could help with the deficit of living jobs in the area. So next slide. Next slide. Okay. So Health Canada wants to know what you're doing to your structure. So I started with a standalone garage that was on my fenced property. It was a 30-year-old building. It had been neglected. There was cracks in the concrete, the wood at the base of the structure was rotting because of drainage problems, especially during the winter. So anyway, I had a lot of work to do on it to bring it up to GPP standards, and that's what this presentation is about. How did I bring that up to GPP standards and get it accepted by Health Canada as my facility? So I insulated an interior wall. I added a plywood ceiling. So let's go on to the next slide and I have pictures of all of this process. So here's my garage. This is a regular garage. So the original state of the garage, you can see it as we move from left to right. It was filled with junk. It had cracked concrete. There was water rot on part of it. So I decided as of after the May 8th directive, where in Health Canada said, you have to have a completed facility before you can apply. So I decided instead of doing the whole building, I would do one-third of the building because I couldn't afford it. My objective was to pay for everything and get no debt and get no investors and make as much money as possible because of that. So here I have a picture of the third of the garage being finished. And that is what I applied for my micro-license with. Was that one-third of the garage finished? Next slide. So you can see the room going in. Now we're inside the room looking out at the rest of the unfinished garage. So I insulated it and put walls up. I put ceiling up. I fixed the cracks. Next slide. That green waterproofing sealant was applied to the floor to protect those boards. I also dug a drainage ditch outside and drained the water away from the building so that it wouldn't come into the building anymore. So again, we're in the room looking. The white wall is the new wall. And then look in the center picture, you can see the ceiling going in, and it was insulated as well. Next slide. So this is the finished room or almost finished room. This is what I submitted to Health Canada. Completely painted with a good quality paint that is a sealant and is very heavy duty. So it resists crumbling when it's washed. It can be washed repeatedly and sanitized. It doesn't crumble or flake off into the product, contaminating the product. So this was what I submitted to Health Canada. Next slide. They came back with some things that they wanted done to it. So this is the outside of the room. You can see where I actually ran out of paint, but I submitted this to Health Canada anyway because it was the little room that I was submitting. So there's the door open, the door closed, up on the floor showing that this was a raw cement floor, and now that it is not porous any longer and it has a very good heavy coat that won't flake or chip. Next slide. So these are things Health Canada asked for. They wanted a door sweep on the door. So there's the door sweep installed. They don't want any cracks or seams where mold or pests can hide. They wanted my ventilation and air filtration system installed. So there they are installed. And finally, they wanted a lock on my overhead garage door. That happens to be a handgun lock that worked real well for that purpose. I couldn't get any kind of a padlock to work through there. But that's to keep the garage door from being opened by anybody who doesn't have a key to that little lock right there. Okay, next slide. Once they asked for these things, then they approved me. And so here's the room being used. I used, because it's such a tiny room, I had to find ways of hanging a lot of product in a very small space. My room was only eight foot by 18 foot. My entire garage was only 20 foot by 18 foot. So a little bitty space. So I bought all of these racks, these shelving units, and they're on wheels. And so I hung up on there. I also needed some sort of a destruction method. I had CRA came out to do their pre-license inspection and they approved of the destruction by lawn tractor method. So there you see on the right destruction going on and with a mulcher, I have a mulcher attached to that and it just grinds everything up and fires it off into the compost pile over there on the side. Next slide. So this is the room after drawing. Wild curing is going on. So these shelves move around easily and they can accommodate the totes, the different totes. I have color-coded totes for each separate strain. In the middle picture, you can see there's a little white square sitting on top of the lower right totes. And that is a UBiBot. It was $100 and it texts me if my environment gets out of whack in there. And I also have inside the bins, I have little cheap hygrometers that just tell me what the actual humidity is inside that bin. So this is all done for very, very, very inexpensively. All right, next. Right, so here's a before and after. Same corner of the barn. This is the part that I'm finishing up now. I was approved by Health Canada with only the one little tiny room. And now I'm in the process of finishing up the rest of the garage and I'll submit an amendment to my license to, for Health Canada to recognize the rest of the, to approve the rest of the facility. So this would, will eventually be my drawing room. And so that's what it looks like on the left is before and then on the right after where it's been sealed and a drop ceiling put in and we're starting to seal the concrete now and paint the floor. Next slide. This is my outdoor hand washing station. Health Canada required a hand washing station and it didn't need to be indoors. So here's my outdoor hand washing station. And it's okay that it's made of wood because wood is everywhere outside and wood is the, that's the building that it's up next against the, my facility. Next slide. I thought I had a picture. There it is. Okay. So that is my garage. That's what I started with. Okay. And the hand washing station is now we're all that fencing. I was improving the fencing. I had the fencing in place. It was sufficient to keep my dogs on my property, which is sufficient to keep intruders out. It's a six foot high fence. We'll get more into that in the next series of slides. But anyway, so this is, this is the outside of my building. It had a metal roof. It was just a garage. You can even see the, the rot to the bottom left of the door where the, that's where it filled up with water over winter. And the water just sat there and it rotted away. So I dug a drainage ditch so that it, it would carry away. All right. Next slide. So this is where my perimeter fence. Health candidate, this is the actual, my dog is barking outside. Apologies. There must be somebody wandering around out there. The, so this is where, what I sent to health Canada as part of my evidence package to show that there was adequate security in place. Next slide. Again, health Canada wants to know what you're, what you have. So there needs to be a description at the front of your slides or the front of your document of telling them what kind of security features you have. Okay. So I have an unscalable steel wire fence. If you try to scale it, it will wobble and fall over and it will show damage. It's a six foot high fence. It is not chain link fence. Thank goodness. I didn't have to put in chain link fence. This is a two by four weld and wire goat fence that I used for my goats for many years. So this is just for 12 gauge, 12 gauge. Nope. Sorry. 14 gauge. There's two padlock man gates and two padlock drive through gates. There's an easement on the property and the New Brunswick power has to be able to come in whenever they need to. And so I have that written into my SOP how do you handle an unannounced demand for entry by an authorized authority. Okay. So I created a second fence, a fence within a fence around my crop area because I have dogs. I have guard dogs and I didn't want the dogs brushing up against the product. So I created a fence within a fence and I turned out to be really, really useful. It kept out. I put privacy up. Go ahead and put next screen up. I put privacy fencing up and it ended up keeping a lot of feathers and dog hair and leaves and pine needles and all kinds of stuff out of the product. Okay. So this is what Health Canada is looking for when they ask you for a site plan. This is a site plan built on a certified survey. They want a certified up-to-date survey that shows the structures on the property. I had to have this done and I had to be done in the middle of March and it was cold out there. It was hard to find the posts. But I got it done because Health Canada said that what I had was insufficient. They want the structures on it. So this is my property with the structures. I edited this using Word and added in these shapes to represent the trees to show that it's very secluded at the end of a road. The red dot is the propagation, is my building one, and the grow area is the green. So you can see it's completely surrounded by a fence. I have the padlock gates marked on there and where an additional fencing was put in. This is what Health Canada is asking for when they ask for a site plan. Next slide. They also went product flow in there. So here's a conglomerate picture showing the fencing to the left of my building. It encircles the fencing and then they want to see the padlock. So here's the up-close pictures of the padlocks. So you can see that my fencing is old. It's not necessarily new. And it's been repaired and repaired again. And it was still approved. So, okay, next slide. Next slide. Okay. So Health Canada wanted to see all the way around the property. So walking clockwise around the property. This is also what my evidence package looked like. My video evidence looked like. I walked with my camera and talked. Okay. Here we have six foot high fence. It's unscalable. It goes all the way to the ground. You know, it's steel wire mesh. Here's the gate. The gate is heightened. I don't think you can really can't tell on this picture, but the gate is about three feet higher than what the structure of the gate itself is. I added height on to the gate. And then I just walked around the edge of the property showing that there was entirely enclosed. Next slide. And I talked pretty much the whole time about what they were seeing and how this would prevent entry and how I would know if there was entry because the dogs would bark. So then this is looking back down the fence line and up to where a series of gates are. So this is the first gate, the man gate into another dog pin and a close-up of the padlock gate. Everywhere there was a gate, I showed a close-up of the padlock. Next slide. Right. So we're looking back at the house now and at what ended up being the grow area where the little pond is, the grow area is directly behind that. You'll see that in the next few pictures. But as we're looking at the house, there's a fence between the backyard and the front yard. And so the picture on the right is that fence, there's a close-up of that fence showing again that it's six foot high, not scalable, and in circles, completely in circles of property. Okay. Next slide. And so here's a close-up of that gate and that it's padlocked and looking back now at the property from this gate, we can see all the way down and the picture on the right, you can see the pond from the other side and that's where the grow area ended up being. Next slide. And then, and the finally up to the front gate again and from the front gate to the building and the garage door is open at that point. But this showed Health Canada, both in the video footage and through my pictures that it was an entirely secured perimeter that nobody could get into. And I repeatedly mentioned that it contained my dogs who were escape artists. So if it could contain them, it can keep people out. Next slide. Right. So this is from the second floor of my house, looking down on the work I was doing on the grow area. So you can see the perimeter fence around the outside, sort of the mode area. And then inside that, there's a fence within a fence. And that is a 2007 square foot area. At that time, I was planning on doing my own clones in the little propagation room. So I had 144 square feet of grow space inside and 2007 square feet of grow space outside. And 2007 is exactly one foot short of the allowed 2152 square feet that Health Canada allows you. And I did that on purpose so they wouldn't be dickering over a couple inches here and a couple of inches there. It wasn't worth my time. So I shorted myself by one square foot. Next slide. What we're looking at in these are the fence within a fence. Okay. So there's the outside fence and there's the inside fence showing the grow area. And in the grow area, I have holes dug of terrible soil. It's sand with clay clods in it. So I had a little machine come in that dug all these holes. And I put marine compost bags. So that's what you're seeing in the picture is the holes dug with the marine compost bags sitting next to the holes preparing to attempt to enhance the soil. So I ended up later putting in privacy screen. If you drive up my driveway by where the garage is, where building one is, if you drive up that driveway, you can virtually see the whole property. So I didn't like that. And I didn't want people sitting there. And it's a beautiful view from that point. So I ended up blocking it off so that people would have no reason to sit there and stare down my driveway and cause my dogs to bark and my neighbors to complain. So next slide. Health Canada also wanted to see this is the 2007 square feet I was showing. I showed to Health Canada this is actually taken from a land survey application. And it wasn't terribly accurate, but it was accurate. And enough for me to be able to show the perimeter of the grow area. And Health Canada requires that you justify your calculations. So I had to prove that it was 2007 square feet by doing math. And I don't like math. So it took me a while, but I got there's two separate calculations needed to determine the area of a five-sided pentagram. So anyway, that's just to show you the kinds of things that Health Canada will look for or ask for. If you have a weird shape to your grow area, you will have to justify the area used. Next slide. All right, so here we are looking back from the house down towards the driveway. The building is on the right. That is my driveway with the privacy screen up. And the grow area is on the left with privacy screen up. I really ended up liking the privacy screen because I was able to keep out a lot of rain. I ended up stringing tarps over the crop and everything because I didn't plant until I was licensed. So I was planting in September. So that's just a Hail Mary. You're not going to get much of a crop in September, but I had the clones. Yes, they were stunted. Yes, they were root bound. Yes, they were trying to go into flower. And I was keeping them out of flower. But so I planted them because I could. And so I ended up stringing up tarps and plastic and everything over the crop because September and October is our rainy season out here. So anyway, so next slide. And here we go with everything growing. So the two pictures, two first pictures are the crop inside doing unbelievably well for being stunted and root bound and planted in September. But you can see the I ended up deciding I was going to have to put plastic over the plant. So you see the greenhouse structure sort of going in around the plants. We're working around plants while they're growing. But you can see beyond the greenhouse structure, you see the fencing with the privacy screen on it. And then on the far right, you can see the plastic going in over the greenhouse structures. And what I discovered is that the screen works real well in keeping a lot of that, we have a lot of wind. And so the rain would blow right under those tarps and right under the plastic, the greenhouse plastic. So the privacy screen on the side of it helped keep a lot of the a lot of the dampness out of the flower. All right, next slide. And success. So we did get some plants that really bounce back after being so mistreated. And we did get some, but I lost at least 50% of the crop to bud rot because it was just so wet and so humid and rainy all the time. Next slide. As I've mentioned, I use dogs as a deterrent. They provided 24 seven deterrent, an alarm. They are my first response. If there's anything that one dog is barking about, I turn them all loose in the yard and they all go running up there. I have six of these and a seventh one on the way. I've just purchased another one. They're real serious scar dogs. It's a Russian shepherd called a Caucasian of Charca. And the dog on the left is on alert. And the dog on the right has identified a threat and is lunging at the fence with her teeth barred. So, you know, they're a real serious deterrent. And people in the area know of these dogs. They know how I keep the fencing that's required to keep them. They're leery of the dogs and I capitalize on that. So next slide. This is a dog bone, a beef bone that I have put inside of an old sneaker and left it just outside of my fence. So anybody thinking about going in sees that. And they don't know it's a beef bone. So anyway, this is how I am. This is a deterrent to would be intruders. And the dogs are very, very, very effective at that. I don't have any security cameras and I leave dogs out 24 seven. They are put outside in shifts. They do their shift and then they get to come inside and sleep inside in the warmth. So that concludes my presentation. I wanted to try to remove some of the fear and mystique about getting a license. It's doable without spending a million and a half. If you have a township that is willing to work with you because my area is, you know, is fairly residential. I am remote, but my township, you know, really wanted to see this succeed. We have another, we have an LP in town. And so the township was instrumental in enabling me to get a license. Because a confirmation of zoning letter is required. Health Canada requires that. And it must mention micro cultivation. And my township was very happy to provide that for me. And a lot of townships are giving a lot of people a lot of trouble. And this is a really good opportunity for the township. It's a good opportunity for a, for a cottage industry, for jobs that are, that provide a living wage. It's good for the economy, the money that comes into the area stays in the area. And, and I'm getting technical difficulty sign flashing up on my screen. So there's a storm rolling in and I tend to lose internet when that happens. So it's good that that's the end of my, my presentation and my happy to take questions. Thank you so much for sharing that information, really sharing kind of the steps and processes that you've taken as an individual. It's so generous that you're willing to share it with the rest of the audience that may be entering this market just to see that it can be a simple process. Maybe everything that you read and see isn't necessarily 100% true in terms of costs. I'm just going to let the audience know in case people weren't around at the start. This webinar is going to be recorded and the slides are going to be posted. They're going to be posted on our website, gov.bc.ca backslash economic development. We also are going to be sending out a survey for all the participants for this webinar. So if there's different content or more content that you want to learn about or there's a different webinar topic that you'd like to see in the future to cover another area of this industry or a different industry that hasn't been covered, we're definitely happy to take your feedback and incorporate that into our future offerings. And if you're new to this webinar series, I know we did have a wide net for this one just because it was a unique topic, but you are doing economic development work in your area. Subscribe to our webinar series. You'll just be notified of all the new topics. So if we do have another webinar on cannabis, then you will be notified and you'll be able to register easily. So with that, we are done the content for the day, but we're going to open it up for a question and answer period. We have had quite a few questions come in throughout the session. So I just ask that all three of our presenters come back online and I'm going to ask some of the questions that have come through. So the first one that I'm going to ask, it came from for Shannon and just asking if she can supply any information on the other co-op operations within her region. I know that there is the outdoor co-op and they are focusing on cultivating outdoors with a broad range of different farms in the area. That is the one that I know is in production right now. Great. And if anyone wanted to reach out or find out more from them, do you know how they'd be contacted? Do they have an online presence or anything like that? I don't actually know at this point, but someone can send me an email and I can try to link somebody if necessary. Awesome. Thank you so much. Another question that just came in from the audience and any of you are able to answer this is, what is the definition of a micro cultivation in Canada? Well, the difference between a micro and a standard, a micro has a limit of 200 meters squared of growth space. And because we are so limited, you saw how small that area was, my grow area was, it was so small because it is so limited. Health Canada allows us to not have security cameras. They are less rigorous on interpretation of some of the rules like allowing me to have an outdoor hand washing station. So they are more lenient with micros in trying to get the craft industry to embrace legalization. So a micro is just a small version. You're allowed to sell to other licensed entities such as other LPs, microprocessors, micros, even regional authorities as long as they are licensed to you can sell to them. You cannot sell to the public without obtaining a microprocessing license. So whereas before maybe people produced a product and packaged it and sold it, that's three separate licenses right there. You have to have a cultivation license to produce it and to stamp it with the excise stamp. And then you have to have a sales license to sell it to the public, to medical. So you can only sell medical if I understand it correctly. You can sell your excise stamped packaged finished product to the BC cannabis store. You can sell it to shoppers now as a sales of cannabis. In other words, you can distribute it to companies that will buy it and put it on their shelves and sell it if you have the processing license. You will need a sales license if you want to sell medical. And the sales license entails much of what's required for a designated grower now where you have to verify that the person has the prescription and that that's the person who's coming to pick this up and so forth. Yeah, and I'd like to add that micro really represents a craft market, a more connoisseur market and will have really high quality connoisseur products generally have a variety of really interesting genetics. So it's really the craft market similar to beer and wine. Great. Thank you so much. A question specific for Tamara. Just to go over how many plants do you actually have and what is your, what do you define as your total growing space? I didn't use my little room at all. So I only had 2007 square feet of growing space. I started with 200 clones, but they, they, I lost a bunch of them during the process of waiting to be licensed. So I ended up planting about 166 clones and lost over the course of, you know, the growth time I've lost about lost out of about 128. So I have right around 128 plants that I harvested. And as I said, of that, I found, you know, I cut out about 50% of the product and just, you know, just destroyed it because it was, it was too, it had too much bud rot. There was some powdery mildew starting. It was, it was a real nightmare even with the, with the greenhouses up. But I'm not, my expertise is in regulatory compliance, not in growing. So I needed the experience to grow and to find, and to see, and I tried two different strains and see which strain I was going to stick with. So I, I will next year be planting 200 plants in that same area. Great. And we have a couple more questions. It seems like people are really interested in your, your process and exactly what your interactions were with some other stakeholders. So what conflicts did you have with any building codes or local government building departments of any? Well, New Brunswick, which is where I am, at some point the, the powers that be decided that they didn't want cannabis anywhere except in industrial zones. And that makes it very, very difficult. So I already had a zoning confirmation of zoning letter from my township in hand. And this edict was passed down from on high that you needed to be in an industrial area. So this cost many people lose thousands and thousands of dollars. They had buildings ordered, they had land under contract, they had, but they weren't in a zoning area, in an industrial zoning area. I appealed to that decision because I'm outdoors and it's counterproductive to grow cannabis. And I grow a medical strain out in an industrial zone where no person's oil and road dirt get picked up on and out everywhere. So I appealed it and, and they made the decision that it doesn't count if you're, if you're growing outdoors, you don't have to be in an industrial zone. But everybody else in New Brunswick does. So that was a horrible experience because they were not grandfathering us. They just said, no, your, your confirmation of zoning letter is not, is no longer valid. And, and we aren't, we aren't accepting it. So that was one, there's been horror stories coming out of Ontario of townships deciding that they don't want cannabis. They're expecting lots of road traffic. You saw how big that area is, the grow area. I send that picture to people say, show this to your township because they, they're thinking this is going to be acres and acres and acres. And it's a little tiny plot of land that you can kick a can twice the length of it. You know, I have dogyards that are bigger than my grow area. So, you know, whenever people are thinking of it, they're thinking of these acres and acres and acres or great big greenhouses. You know, that have light pollution all night long. That's, that's not what a micro is. And so there needs to be a great deal of education with the townships, letting them know that this is even available. The micro license is a completely different category of business than the big LPs are. But there have just been numerous awful stories. People have sunk a lot of money into it only to have their townships say, no, no, you can't do it, not even on agricultural land. This happened in Ontario, the township just turned, turned the micro applicant down for, they said that she had to have some kind of weird zoning for, she was on agricultural and they wanted, I think they wanted industrial and she couldn't, she tried to get it and couldn't get it. And so her plans were stopped right there. So yeah, I would reiterate what Shannon said, the very first thing you need to do is check your zoning with your township. Find out if you're on your, on the property that you have or you're looking at that you can grow indoors or outdoors, whichever one or both, if you're interested in that. And that a zoning of confirmation of zoning letter is, is possible that that will mention micro cultivation. It's got to mention micro cultivation. It can't just be your property is okay for your intended use. No, it has to mention micro cultivation so they can't come back later and say, well, we didn't think you were going to do micro cultivation. So that's something health Canada requires that they're looking out for us there for the future, somebody coming back and saying, well, we didn't really think you meant that. Okay, so there's some really, I would encourage you to join on Facebook, we have a really nice community of people. The Canadian craft, sorry, Canadian cannabis micro cultivation group. And it has lots of horror stories on there. Just look up zoning as the as a keyword for do a search on there. We have thousands and thousands of posts on there of covering all different topics from GPP compliance for flooring to, you know, two townships and what people have done and lots of people have successfully Appealed to their township and gotten the zoning they need to get. But that's the first thing check for zoning, because if there's two things that are the two number one that number the two main reasons that anybody drops out of becoming a micro are zoning issues or Inadequate funding. They just don't have the money to come up with a completely compliant facility. So I'm telling them so plant outdoors on your land. Use that money then to fund your Building, you know, start outdoors, start small, take baby steps, you know, don't, don't give up. This is doable. It's feasible. And you just have to be determined and say, Well, okay, that door closed, let's find another way in. So in, in a kind of a similar alignment to that someone was curious how much did you spend on licensing versus structure in that $15,000 that you talked about for getting your application through. You know, so it wasn't all that much. It's it was, it's I believe $1,675 to apply for the license itself. It's $1,690 to apply for each security license. So if you had five security, you have to have five security clearances. That's five security feet. But I only have one. I have a one man operation here. And so it was 1675 1690. It cost me $2,500 for my survey. It cost me $100 for my confirmation of zoning letter. And then the rest of it was all labor and and materials to retrofit my building and and create my grow area and the fencing around my grow area and all of that. So the licensing it was not expensive. You know, and and it's much more expensive to apply for a standard license, for example, then as soon as I was licensed, there was two more big chunks of money. But I was floating on on on on cloud nine because I'd been licensed. So I didn't really feel that but there was the $2,500 license fee yearly license fee you pay that every year plus I'll pay a percentage of my profit. I think it's 1% at 3%. I can't remember. But anyway, it isn't that much. So I had kick up the 2,500 and then I had tried to find a surety bond company. They would not I could not find anybody I tried five different places. I finally got approved after I'd already choked up the five brand bond for for CRA. CRA needs needs their their money in and all that money is as it says it basically says if you don't pay your HST, then we're going to take it from this fund. Okay, from this money that's sitting here in your name. So the something that I didn't expect that took me by surprise is you need a you need two licenses to be able to cultivate. You need the health Canada license and you need a CRA license in order to cultivate. I stuck my poor, sickly plants on the ground as soon as I could and didn't have my CRA license yet. And CRA was not happy with that. Okay, they threatened to assess me because I had planted without having a CRA license and I couldn't understand that I said well, you know, I have to have two licenses to plant on the ground. And the answer is yes. And that's just the way the law was written. And I explained my situation I said I'm looking at a winter with no income. If I don't get these plants planted because I used every bit of my savings. That was supposed to handle me. It's supposed to cover me for winter. I used every bit of it to create this to get this micro license. So CRA was was was nice enough to to not assess me, but but they could have. And so it was it's a difficult choice that that outdoor growers are going to be faced with if they don't get approved until late in the year. So outdoor growers apply right now so that even if it does take you nine months you'll still have time to plant in the spring in a reasonable and a reasonable date instead of in September like I was planting. And another question that's come in. How are you getting your product to market? I was signed by Pasha brands within six hours of being licensed. There's not enough craft growers out there. Okay. So there are many LPs who are interested in signing craft growers. So I will package in bulk. And then call up my buyer and tell them and they will make arrangements to come pick up the product. So they will take it and then they will put it in final packaging and sell it or make extracts out of it or or they may sell it in bulk to somebody. That's that's up to them. I'm not. I don't have a brand that I'm trying to get to be known. But but I do have a good product and I wanted it to be made available as much as possible. You know when they are marketing so they are marketing marketing my product for me. And Shannon, can you kind of provide some context? How would this happen in British Columbia from your knowledge for sales for distribution? You're getting the market or the product to market. I think that, yeah, it's going to have a lot to do with processors and processors and other licensed producers companies that are going to want to purchase craft product. And that's a huge part of it as well as people that have medical sales licenses and they can sell direct to medical patients. Can I interject something that Pasha brands is part of BC craft supply. And so they're they are out in BC. So it was a BC LP that bought my product or that signed a contract with me to provide my product for four years. So there, and there are a lot of LPs who are signing new microbes just as soon as they come on board. I, you know, as soon as you say I'm licensed or even that I've applied, there, there are people that are wanting to talk to you about signing. And there are when I started this, they were signing at $350 or $4 a gram and it's gone up since then. Okay, because they're just there. There's just not enough microbes that are applying and that are making it through. So I think we're at, I don't know, maybe we're under 10 after over a year we're under 10 micros still that have been licensed. So there's a lot of room. And there's a lot of interest from LPs because they do want to provide a higher end product to their, you know, they have, they have plenty of the middle range product. So what they need is some high end product. And so that's why they're interested in signing craft producers. Great. And in terms of your the continuous improvement that you're doing for your property. Are you what's what are the requirements of our crown security cameras? You said that you're putting them in. What are your the requirements for micro cultivators? Yeah. Health Canada does not require cameras. I think cameras are really, really good idea. I'm starting on my second micro site now and I will be putting cameras in there. I'm using a system that is and you can contact me for the name that has smart cameras and it's man 24 seven. So my site can basically be unmanned at all times and it's still being monitored. So the these cameras are able to pick up a crow landing in the, you know, 100 meters away, identify it's a crow and not and not cause an alarm. Whereas they can pick up deer at night. I mean the demo was was unbelievable, but it's worth it to me. That system was going to cost me about 12,000 in cameras and about 600 a month for the summer months only. But it was completely I don't have to have any security anything else there because they will interact with somebody approaching the gate. And they showed me where where an older gentleman was was sort of just making the rounds around an unmanned site. And they had him on camera and the the the smart cameras alerted the guards that there was somebody approaching the the property. And so the guards came up there and they interacted with the with the gentleman directly said to will the gentleman in the red sweater please leave the press passing we will call the police. And he jumped out of the skin so you know it's a very very effective deterrent before the crime happens. Okay, I don't want a video camera that's going to show me what happened so I can hand it over to the police after I've been robbed blind. An interactive system that's going to stop somebody before they get before they ever take their cutters out as soon as they approach the fence that's going to stop them. Now where I am I have the dogs and they're they're just being phenomenal. Of course I get alerts for deer and and porcupines and everything to but They're universal deterrent. Nothing wants to come up to the gate with those dogs there and but in my next site I won't have the dogs there. And so I will be using this this smart security camera video surveillance system that that my site could be basically unmanned except when I'm there, you know to to verify that everything is going well. Awesome. Thank you so much and we just have time for one more question. Again, thank you for our participants for putting in questions we weren't able to get to all of them but hopefully you can reach out to Tamara via Facebook. You can reach out to Shannon through Community Futures and then you have that email and contact information both for the website and the email for the cannabis secretariat. So the final question was for Shannon. If I would open a small microprocessing facility and had investors do all of the investors need to be indicated on the federal government application form. I believe anybody that has controlling interest in the in your company does need to pass security parents. I could add something to that you have to list everybody that has put in any money on this and then you have to justify why they don't have controlling interest. Okay, so even if you have a bank give you a loan. They need to be listed and you need to say they have no controlling interest. They cannot access the property. You know at their own will they need to have us presence so you have to justify why they don't have a security clearance and why they they can't say look I have a lot of money involved here I want you to use this this Prohibited prohibited pesticide and you have to use this because I have controlling interest in this company. So that's what Health Canada is looking for. They want to know who has Their finger in the pie and how much control they have and you have to justify that they don't have control any control if they don't if your investor is the bank or the Community Futures. Then you have to say they have no controlling interest. They have no voting power. They cannot access the property without you know without a secure security cleared staff member present. Awesome. Well thank you so much. Thank you again for the coming on ensuring this knowledge and if you have any more questions and you you will be able to see the posted webinar as well as the slides. Usually they'll be up by this time next week. If you have any questions in the short term you can also reach out to us at the economic development at economic development at gov.bc.ca. We're definitely not the experts in this field. That's why I would point you to our presenters with specific questions. But if you need more information or think that you have a question for us please don't hesitate to reach out. And with that final thank you to everyone who's joined us today and to our presenters and I'm going to end the webinar.