Cannabis tax windfall won't solve provincial money problems here's why

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TODAY:

• The provinces are about to start making a lot of money off of legal weed, but while estimates vary, it seems pretty certain that the windfall won't be enough to solve their money woes.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection is beefing up security along the Canada-U.S. border as the number of illegal crossings rises.
• The family of kidnapped African billionaireMohammedDewji is offering a $567,000 reward for his safe return, no questions asked.
• Missed The National last night? Watch it here.

Cashing in on cannabis

Recreational cannabis becomes legal at the stroke of midnight across Canada tonight.

And while there are still lots of "unknowns" about the coming weeks and months from the efficacy of new anti-pot-driving laws, to the legality of workplace bans, to the future of the black market one thing is not in doubt.

Governments are about to start making a lot of money from legal weed.

Estimates vary. The tax deal that the provinces struck with Ottawa last December a 75/25 split, with the feds' take limited to $100 million a year was based on a projected $400 million in total annual revenue. Which is significantly less than the $618 million a year projection that the Parliamentary Budget Office came up with in its 2016 report on the fiscal fallout of legalized cannabis.

Outside analysts, however, have been throwing around much bigger numbers.

Last spring, CIBC predicted that Canada's retail pot market could top $6.5 billion by 2020, more than what is currently spent on hard liquor and almost as much as wine. It said the provinces would take home more than 70 per cent of the profits and taxes, some $3 billion a year. (A couple of years earlier, a different CIBC report suggested the market could be as big as $10 billion, generating $5 billion in revenue for governments).

Meanwhile, a 2016 Deloitte survey of cannabis consumers suggested the total value of the marijuana business in Canada, including paraphernalia, lab tests and security, will be closer to $23 billion.

The provinces are being a little more circumspect.

Cannabis revenue estimates tabled this past spring ranged from a low-ball $1.8 million in profit on $5.8 million in retail sales in Newfoundland and Labrador less than tiny PEI's $7.5 million in revenue to Nova Scotia, which was predicting a budget surplus of $29.4 million based mostly on its take from an expected $87 million in pot sales.

However, Ottawa's decision to push back the legalization day from July 1 to Oct. 17 has messed with the numbers a bit. New Brunswick, for example, revised its cannabis revenue forecast from $6 million down to $3.6 million for 2018.

And changes of government have made things a little more opaque. The Ontario Liberals had been predicting a net loss over the first two years of government-run cannabis stores, before a $100 million profit in 2021. All of which has changed with Doug Ford's decision to move to private retail outlets.

Philippe Couillard's Liberals in Quebec had maintained that they had no profit motive whatsoever, amid plans to set the price of pot at a little over $6 a gram, four bucks less than much of the rest of Canada. New Premier Franois Legault wants to raise the legal age for cannabis from 18 to 21 and ban smoking in all public places in the province.

The most realistic estimate might be British Columbia's, with a projected government revenue of $200 million by the spring of 2021 and at least $75 million for the coming fiscal year.

Even that is likely blowing smoke, judging by revenue in the U.S.:

• The state of Colorado, with a population of 5.6 million 800,000 more than B.C. sold $1.95 billion Cdn worth of legal cannabis last year, collecting $319 million in taxes and fees.
• Washington State, population 7.4 million, raked in $412 million Cdn in revenue from legal marijuana in 2017, up almost $168 million from the year before.

Yet the windfall from cannabis may not make that much of a difference to provincial bottom lines.

In British Columbia, cost overruns alone for the Site C hydroelectric dam now with an estimated price tag of $10.7 billion, $2.4 billion more than envisioned are the equivalent of almost 15 years of predicted pot profits.

Last week, the Alberta government pledged $700 million to a possible Calgary 2026 Winter Olympics roughly 27 years of its estimated $26 million annual take from legalized pot.

And just this morningOntario's fiscal watchdog, the Financial Accountability Office, tabled a report estimating that the Ford government's decision to scrap cap-and-trade will result in $3 billion in lost revenue over the next four years. That's 30 years worth of what provincially run cannabis stores are predicted to have netted.

All suggesting that cannabis consumers aren't the only ones taking a break from reality.

Border hopping

David Common travelled to Maine and spent time with the U.S. Border Patrol to find out more about who's crossing illegally and why some are choosing to jump back into the United States after making it to Canada.

My left foot was in Canada. My right foot in the U.S. Who wouldn't hop between the two countries for fun when walking along the world's longest undefended border?

"I've been counting," the border patrol agent in a nearby pickup truck told me. "You've broken the law more than 10 times."

So I stopped.

Luckily, we were on a ride-along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so my border-hopping didn't put me in his sights for arrest.

More than 32,000 others have done what I did, leaving the U.S. and walking into Canada without going through an official border crossing-point, except they intended to stay. Now the first batch of their asylum claims are being heard and some are being told "no" by Canada, which has American border agents on guard for their return south.

"The government has deemed that their claim is not valid," the U.S. Border Patrol's Houlton Division chief Dennis Harmon told me from his unmarked vehicle on the gravel road in rural Maine that separates the two nations. "We have some of those people trying to effect their illegal entry into the U.S."

The U.S. border agents I spoke to continually stressed the excellent information exchange they have with their Canadian counterparts guarding the border. They said they also appreciate Canadians who call them directly, to mention things like a suspicious car on a border road. They've been getting a lot more of those calls lately.

While some of those making the crossing are people who left the U.S. for Canada illegally and have decided to return, others are believed to be arriving in Canada directly from Mexico.

It's been a couple of years since Ottawa dropped the visa requirement for Mexican citizens. That means it can actually be cheaper to just buy a flight from Mexico to Canada, get to a quiet part of the border and walk across, rather than pay a Mexican smuggler and take your chances crossing into the southern U.S.

It's not exactly streams of people, mind you. Yes, apprehensions are up 60 per cent in just this one sector of the Canada/U.S. border. But we're talking dozens of people a year, not the hundreds a month illegally crossing the U.S/Mexico border.

And yet, any increase gets attention enough that the border patrol has added agents and technology to detect illegal crossings along the northern frontier.

• WATCH: David Common's story on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's efforts to stop illegal crossingstonight on The National on CBC Television and streamed online

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Billionaire kidnapping

The family of a kidnapped African billionaire is offering a $567,000 reward for his safe return, no questions asked.

Mohammed Dewji, a 43-year-old entrepreneur worth an estimated $1.5 billion US, was snatched from outside a luxury hotel in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam early on Thursday morning. He hasn't been heard from since.

According to witnesses, a team of three masked, English-speaking men were lying in wait in the parking area of the Colosseum hotel when Dewji, a fitness fanatic, arrived for his daily workout just after 5:30 a.m. They bundled him into a car, fired a shot into the air to dissuade hotel security from pursuing them, and were gone within 30 seconds.

Yesterday, Dewji's company MeTL a textile, flour and beverage conglomerate tweeted details of the reward with the hashtag #BringBackOurMo. Azim Dewji, the kidnap victim's uncle, told reporters that the family is only interested in Mohammed's safe return.

"We want to assure anyone with the information about the whereabouts of our son to come forward and we will treat their information as secret."

Kidnapping is a growing problem in Tanzania. At another press conference yesterday, Kangi Lugola, the country's minister for home affairs, cited 56 kidnapping incidents over the past three years.

Police successfully rescued 22 of the 27 victims in 2017, Lugola said, and have freed 17 of the 21 people taken so far this year. (For a while after Dewji's kidnapping it seemed the police had succeeded again, but the reports of his liberation proved false.) The motives ranged from revenge, to political vendettas, to "economic witchcraft beliefs."

The American-educated Dewji is an internationally known figure who served for 10 years as a member of parliament for Tanzania's ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party and sponsors the country's biggest soccer team. Forbes ranks him as Africa's 17th richest man and the continent's youngest billionaire.

Dewji does not employ bodyguards. He had driven himself to the hotel in his black Range Rover with its hard-to-miss "MO 1" vanity plate.

Police have brought in more than two dozen people for questioning in connection with the kidnapping, including employees of the hotel and Dewji's company. No suspects have been identified, although investigators have said they believe that the masked men are white.

MeTL is Tanzania's largest domestic company, employing some 24,000 people. Dewji also heads two foundations devoted to ending poverty in the country. In 2017, he pledged to give away at least half his fortune, following in the footsteps of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Tanzania's government is promising a swift resolution to the kidnapping.

"The police will never rest until the culprits are brought to book," Lugola said yesterday.

A few words on ...

High-risk skinny-dipping.

Quote of the moment

"We are committed to ensuring that we not only have the tools to hold guilty parties accountable for breaking the law, but [to a system that] also creates an environment that fosters rehabilitation so that we have fewer repeat offenders, fewer victims, and ultimately, safer communities."

- Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, tabling legislation Tuesday to end solitary confinement of federal prisoners. The government wants to create new penitentiary units, called Structured Intervention Units (SIU), to house inmates separately while still giving them access to rehabilitation, mental health care and other programs.

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Today in history

Oct. 16, 1993: Blue Jays fever? Not so much for 1993 World Series

The Toronto Blue Jays' second straight World Series appearance somehow didn't feel quite as special as the first. Hats and t-shirt sales were a little slow, and the scalpers were having trouble getting the sky-high prices they wanted for SkyDome tickets. It all led Paul Hunter to suggest that maybe fans were getting a bit blas about success. Until a week later, when Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run to seal the deal and Torontonians danced in the streets.

Blue Jays fever? Not so much for 1993 World Series

31 years ago

Duration 2:31

The Toronto Blue Jays' trip to the World Series is a little more mundane for fans after the team's 1992 triumph.

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