The controversy surrounding Trudeau’s recent visit to Tofino on The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation now has a connection to the cannabis industry. The property is reportedly connected to a cannabis industry lobbyist.

According to a recent Toronto Sun article, a title search of the property that Justin Trudeau and his family stayed in during his recent highly-publicized trip to Tofino, BC shows it is owned by the founders of a cannabis payment processing company.

Media reports that Trudeau says he paid for the stay and cleared the location with the Federal Ethics Commissioner.

A search of municipal land records from 2012 for the address of the beach house shows it is connected to a numbered company identified as Merrco Payments Inc. Merrco describes itself as a “secure payment processing solution for cannabis and regulated businesses” whose point-of-sale terminals are used by numerous legal cannabis retailers in Canada. 

The key principal for Merrco listed on the company profile online is James McRoberts, who founded the company in 2016. McRoberts is listed as connected to two companies, RX Payments Limited and PayGea Limited on the Paradise Papers. One of these companies had been previously registered as a company lobbying the Liberal government for legal cannabis in 2017. 

According to TVA Nouvelles, Trudeau’s office confirmed that the Prime Minister had paid for his and his family’s stay in the Tofino house, after our Bureau of Investigation insisted on obtaining the information. The stay was reportedly approved by the Federal Ethics Commissioner.