The Nova Scotia RCMP say they have no plans to change their approach to tackling illegal cannabis in the province, despite a new provincial government directive calling for a police crackdown.
Nova Scotia RCMP spokesperson Cst. Mandy Edwards said that’s because Mounties in the province are already enforcing existing laws.
“For us it’s business as usual. This does not change how we operate and enforce those provincial and federal laws,” Edwards said in an interview Monday.
The comments come a few days after Justice Minister Scott Armstrong issued the directive to the RCMP and other Nova Scotia police forces, instructing them to prioritize cannabis enforcement.
It specifically directs police to focus on intelligence collection, identify and disrupt illegal cannabis operations and distribution networks and report “enforcement outcomes” back to the province.
When asked if the ministerial directive means more resources or staff will be allocated to such efforts, Edwards said “we have units in place that deal with drug enforcement throughout the province, so we will continue to do that very important work.”
Earlier this year, Edwards noted that officers charged 21 people with more than 50 offences after executing search warrants at 13 unlicensed cannabis storefronts in Kings, Lunenburg, Annapolis and Queens Counties.
“This was just last February, so it’s been business as usual for us,” she added.
In addition to the police directive, Armstrong also wrote to 13 Mi’kmaq chiefs requesting their co-operation with the police crackdown.
In his initial letter, Armstrong said there are at least 118 illegal dispensaries operating in their communities.
However, when questioned by reporters Thursday, Armstrong said he didn’t know how many of the 118 illegal stores were actually on First Nation land or elsewhere in the province.
The province would later issue a correction, explaining the letter should have stated that the number referred to illegal stores operating provincewide.
Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus of law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said Monday it’s unusual for a provincial government to be directing the police in such a way, and he thinks it’s “very wise” that the Nova Scotia RCMP do not intend to alter their operations based on this directive.
“Police should enforce as best as they can with the priorities they set, following laws that are passed legitimately by the legislature and ones that are clearly constitutional,” Mackay said.
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He added that there was some uncertainty about how to police cannabis operations on First Nations territory, noting that multiple cases were still in court.
He said as these cases move through the judicial system, “if we don’t proceed with a lot of caution in enforcing, we run the risk of enforcing a law on people that perhaps in fact wasn’t a valid law in the first place.”
This means the police could be put in a position where they’re enforcing laws that eventually prove to be unconstitutional, “not because they particularly wanted to do that, but because they were directed by the justice minister to do that.”
MacKay said this means the provincial directive is premature and potentially problematic.
Rosalie Francis, a Mi’kmaq lawyer whose firm is based out of Sipekne’katik First Nation, said Monday the directive and corresponding letter to chiefs serves to further damage relationships between the province and First Nations in Nova Scotia.
“You’re targeting First Nations in this kind of directive that seems very hate-driven… when you’re targeting your whole enforcement of your police force against one race, that’s very questionable,” Francis said in an interview.
Armstrong said Thursday the provincial directive is not targeting First Nations cannabis operations, because the directive to ramp up enforcement applies to all dispensaries.
“To that I would say, did you send a letter to every mayor and municipal leader in this province?” Francis said, “if this is something that’s a directive of a general application to everyone in the province, then why was this letter only sent out to the M’i’kmaq chiefs?”
In that letter, Armstrong said the government had received a number of requests from chiefs who have been seeking provincial support to run their own cannabis retail systems.
“Rather than respond to each of these requests individually, I felt it important to share our government’s clear and unequivocal position with all of you today: Given the implication to public health and public safety, all cannabis retail activity, including on-reserve activity, must operate under the existing provincial framework as detailed in the Cannabis Control Act, 2021,” the letter says.
Provincial law controls the sale of cannabis, which is done through outlets of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. There are 51 legal cannabis outlets across the province; one is located on a First Nations reserve.
Armstrong’s letter said the provincial liquor corporation must remain the exclusive cannabis retailer. “I am not aware of an even remotely credible basis for suggesting that use of or trade in cannabis is a Mi’kmaq Aboriginal or treaty right.”
Francis said it’s troubling that the province is saying definitively that all on-reserve cannabis sales is illegal.
“They’re fully aware that the landscape surrounding cannabis operations on-reserve is a very dynamic and many-layered legal issue. It’s just not a straightforward illegal activity like the province wants to deem it… So to blatantly say that something’s illegal, they know absolutely that’s incorrect.” she said.
Millbrook First Nation council member Chris Googoo said Thursday that Armstrong’s directive is a deliberate violation of Mi’kmaq treaty rights.
“It is, at its core, an act of systemic racism dressed in bureaucratic language,” he said.
Googoo said treaties signed in the 1700s, including the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1752, ensures Mi’kmaq people are allowed to trade freely, and that this would extend to cannabis sales.
“It was never frozen in 1752. It lives today in our moderate livelihood fishery, in our community economies, and in our sovereign right to build a future for our children on our own terms,” Googoo said.
The provincial Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The Halifax Regional Police declined to do an interview and said in a statement “The HRP/RCMP Integrated Drug Unit investigates the purchase and sale of illegal drugs. We will continue this work alongside the provincial directive and our policing partners across the province.”
N.S. RCMP says it was already tackling illegal cannabis before minister’s directive
