Details on updates to Canada’s cannabis regulations are expected on March 12, 2025, according to recently-published Orders in Council.

Documents that appear to show the details of those changes have also been shared online through unofficial sources. StratCann has shared them here for reference but it’s important to note this is not the official source.

The changes were first posted as Orders in Council on February 25, pointing to the March 12 date for publication. March 12 is the next bi-monthly publication date for Gazette II. The previous was February 26. However, several advanced copies of those changes have been circulating online since at least March 5.

In what appear to be potentially prematurely-released documents shared widely online on March 5, the new regulations, the result of a proposal package and feedback period first posted by Health Canada in June 2024, include several changes to how federal cannabis licence holders do business.

Some changes that consumers and retailers will notice are that cannabis products can now come in transparent immediate packaging, and dried cannabis packages will be able to have cut-out view-windows allowing consumers to better see what they are buying. Cannabis packaging and labelling will become a bit more colourful and will be easier to sell in multi-packs in some cases.

One significant change for micro cultivators, micro processors, and cannabis nurseries is a fourfold expansion of how much cannabis they can have on-site at any given time. 

Micro cultivators will be able to grow under a canopy of up to 800 square meters, up from 200. For micro processors, the new regulations will allow up to 2,400 kg on site per year, up from 600 kg a year previously. 

While cannabis nurseries already have no cap on how much cannabis they can grow for the purpose of mother plants, tissue culture, clones, and starts, they were previously capped at having a flowering space no larger than 50 square meters, keeping no more than 5 kg of cannabis flower on-site at any given time, and for a limited time. 

This allowance is for seed production, and nurseries are required to destroy the flower afterwards. 

Under the new changes, cannabis nurseries will be able to grow cannabis to flower in a space of up to 200 square meters and will be able to possess up to 20 kg of dried flower on hand. 

The new changes also make cannabis destruction for licence holders easier, with only one person witnessing the destruction instead of two. 

Cannabis pollen is now also added to the cannabis regulations, making it possible to buy and sell the product that was otherwise being used primarily for internal breeding purposes by nurseries and other cultivators. 

The changes are not exclusive to cannabis production, though. Those seeking to do non-human or animal research with cannabis will be able to do so with fewer regulatory hurdles, and licensed producers will be able to swap out alternative Quality Assurance Persons. 

Cannabis producers can also include more than one barcode on products and can include leaflets inside cannabis packaging. Internal packaging also now has more allowances for peelback or accordion labelling.

The changes were first posted as Orders in Council on February 25, pointing to the March 12 date for publication. The Canada Gazette is where regulatory updates are posted. Proposed regulatory changes are posted in the Canada Gazette I, which is where Health Canada first posted their proposed changes in June 2024, and final updates are posted in Gazette II. The final posting also includes a coming into force date, which can be the same day or at a later time. 

The process of posting these changes first as an Order in Council is most likely a reflection of some of the challenges facing the federal government currently, with Parliament prorogued and an election call expected any day now. 

By posting as an Order of Council, signed off by the Treasury Board—a federal Cabinet Committee with the authority to approve regulation changes—the February 25 publication helps solidify these changes, even if an election is called prior to their final publication in the Gazette, something a called election could otherwise potentially halt.

Once an election is called, most federal government work has to halt. Since there is much speculation that an election could be called as early as March 10, such a move could have helped ensure the pieces were in place to allow these changes to go through without a new election—and a potential new government—interfering with that timeline.

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