This report marks the completion of the first phase of our work, which was focused on engaging with stakeholders and experts to consider evidence and collect opinions and perspectives. For the second phase of our work, we will re-engage stakeholders in multi-sectoral roundtables and host other discussions to gain a deeper understanding and fill any knowledge gaps from our first phase. We will then prepare a final report for the Ministers, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament by March 2024 with our advice and recommendations. Our final report will be based on the data that we have gathered and what we have heard.

Specifically, this report outlines the building blocks used to develop the cannabis framework and the resulting measures (“overview of measures”), key data (“data and observations”), and the perspectives, including lived and living experience, that were shared through our engagement to date (“what we heard”) related to the themes of our mandate set out in Chapter 2. The views of individual stakeholders are not attributed in this report. We recognize that data related to some themes is more limited in scope or availability, and that our engagement activities are not complete. Our suggestions for reform will by necessity likely go beyond the strict parameters of the Cannabis Act and its regulations, as the cannabis framework encompasses associated pieces of legislation, as well as policy and programs, across all levels and areas of government.

In this report, we have included brief summaries of what we have learned though our evidence gathering, and we present a variety of findings from population surveys, research studies, and other sets of data. Although we have endeavoured to be thorough and have invited stakeholders and experts to provide evidence to us, the summaries in this report are limited to key indicators and national-level data that can help characterize the impacts of cannabis legalization. We recognize that the information is imperfect, and often based on self-reported data. In addition, there are areas where there are inconsistencies between different data sources and measures (for example, related to the estimation of legal market share), and we would invite further observations in these areas.