Former Canadian Senator Dan Christmas is working with his home community of Membertou First Nation to help efforts to regulate the sale of cannabis in the Nova Scotia community. 

According to the Cape Breton Post, the former Senator, who represented Nova Scotia from 2016 to 2023, was approached about 18 months ago by Membertou leadership to see if he could lead the community’s efforts to create rules for cannabis sales. 

Christmas has been chair of the Membertou Cannabis Law Working Group for the past year, working on the proposed legislation.

The Membertou First Nation is located near Sydney, Nova Scotia, on the northeastern edge of Cape Breton Island.

In April, the community’s cannabis council began gathering feedback from Membertou community members on a proposed cannabis law that will seek to address some community concerns that the unregulated sale of cannabis in residential areas has had significant impacts on the safety and quality of life in Membertou. 

Google Maps lists around a dozen such unlicensed shops in the small community of about 1,700 people. The only licensed cannabis sales in the province are through the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) stores, and only one such location is within walking distance of the community. There are 50 NSLC Cannabis locations in the entire province. 

According to the Cape Breton Post and Saltwire, Christmas says an initial engagement process raised community concerns about having a large number of customers, some from off-reserve, visiting retail cannabis stores that operate 24-hours-a-day within its residential areas.

“Basically the streets were blocked and there was so much traffic coming in and out that our own residents – the elders and the kids – don’t feel safe on the street,” Christmas explains.

Further highlighting the diversity of opinion about cannabis rules and regulations in First Nations communities, a cannabis rights group, a Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw rights group, the Micmac Rights Association, has been pushing back against what they say is the Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia’s efforts to ban cannabis sales in their community.

Rather than banning stores outright, Christmas says the chief and council would rather designate that those sales take place in commercial areas. Chief and band council say they intend to incentivize cooperation with such a law by offering legal protection to these operators. Membertou would then potentially act as the wholesaler and distribution centre for cannabis that comes onto the reserve. 

Symone Marshall, a Communications Officer with the Membertou Governance Committee, tells StratCann that a valid Distribution License will permit the license holder to sell cannabis to the holder of a Retail License. 

This License can only be held by Membertou, or an entity created by Membertou specifically for this purpose, she explained via email. 

“Once the holder of a Distribution License is established, it will be up to Membertou Chief and Council and the holder of the Distribution License to determine the inventory of cannabis products sold as well as where they are sourced.”

Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Symone Marshall.

Engagement sessions with community members are scheduled to take place throughout June.

New regulations introduced in Nova Scotia in April will allow Mi’kmaw communities to open legal, community-owned cannabis retail stores on reserve by agreement with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC). 

There is currently one on-reserve NSLC location that sells cannabis in Nova Scotia. It opened in Eskasoni, Cape Breton, in September 2022. 

Eight First Nations in Nova Scotia are part of The Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmak, which includes the Membertou First Nation.

Earlier this year, an Associate Chief Judge in Nova Scotia sentenced a man to a six-month conditional sentence for operating a cannabis store within the territory of nearby Millbrook First Nation without a licence. 

The man’s lawyer had argued that the Millbrook First Nation had a historical connection to cannabis and cannabis trade prior to contact with Europeans, that the development of federal and provincial cannabis regulations did not include consultation with the First Nation, and that Millbrook First Nation is on unceded territory. 

In a provincial court ruling from June 2024, a judge said the defendant’s case did not make an effective argument for the existence of aboriginal and/or Treaty rights attached to their cannabis store operations, siding with the Crown, who argued the case was “frivolous” and a waste of the court’s time. 

In deciding on the man’s sentencing, in a March 31, 2025 ruling, the Associate Chief Judge said the sentencing was based on general and specific deterrence, noting that this type of offence is proliferating in Nova Scotia in contradiction of provincial and federal cannabis regulations. 

Cannabis rules in other First Nations communities

How to regulate cannabis sales and production has been a hot topic in another First Nations community in Canada in recent months. An ongoing dispute has been simmering in the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, with vocal opposition from the community against a large cannabis facility called Legacy Farms that was recently licensed by local council. 

In Quebec, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK) recently announced a 45-day moratorium on the retail sale of cannabis in the territory, effective Wednesday, June 11, 2025, until July 25, 2025, due to increased opposition from community members regarding cannabis sales.

The Kahnawà:ke Cannabis Control Board also issued their first micro cannabis production licence in late 2024 to a business called MSJ Cultivation.

This is the second licence the agency has issued. The first was for a standard cultivation and processing licence. The standard cultivation licence and the standard processing licence from KCCB were both issued to 9076484 Canada Inc. on December 3, 2021 and February 14, 2023, respectively.

The micro cultivation licence authorizes MSJ to cultivate, possess, and test cannabis, as well as sell cannabis to holders of a valid distribution licence or export from the Territory to a licensed processor or retailer in another jurisdiction. Only a distribution licence holder is authorized to distribute cannabis products within Kahnawà:ke territory (Kahnawake) to a retail dispensary licence holder. The board has stated that they will only issue one such distribution licence. 

The business also has a micro cultivation licence from Health Canada, which is one of MCK’s licensing requirements for producers. In 2021, the band agency announced a memorandum with Health Canada regarding their cannabis production regulations. The process was years in the making, Tonya Perron, who has led the cannabis file for the MCK for several years, explained to StratCann at the time.

The Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia began issuing its own retail cannabis licences in 2024, as well, including two to Timix Wellness Inc. and one to Nature’s Own Cannabis, while law enforcement has conducted raids against unlicensed stores within the community.

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