1.4 million of..lets say 35 million is 4% of the market. I'm not sure how many growers licenses they intend to award in total, but it seems to be over 100. Procurement orders are supposed to be mandatorily set aside for qualifying Aboriginal businesses and exclusively restricted to such when the order is greater than $5,000 and the primary recipient is the Aboriginal population. There is a potential that MMJ orders for Aboriginal persons would be mandatorily filled exclusively by qualifying Aboriginal growers. Assuming a mandatory set aside would mean non-aboriginal businesses would be excluded from competing for that 4% of the population. That seems a clear advantage for the Aboriginal grower. I don't believe this means an Aboriginal grower can't supply MMJ to other patients/communities, it would just give them a very significant competitive advantage for that submarket. The goal of pursuing such a set aside seems perfectly rational.
However, these "mandatory" set asides come with a caveat that there needs to be a qualifying Aboriginal business and the agency needs to have confidence that business will provide good value for the Canadian taxpayer. So, there is a discretionary caveat to these mandatory set asides. There are also discretionary set asides and government agencies are encouraged to grant these. I fully agree that SLNX needs to pursue a growers license in the normal way while also ensuring Health Canada knows they will be a qualifying Aboriginal business. They should also lobby for a set aside. Even if such lobbying fell short in relation to a mandatory set aside, it would probably aid getting one discretionarily. The two lines metaphor is clumsy I feel because it suggests mutual exclusivity and a false dilemma and it underestimates the burden on SLNX to demonstrate they deserve a license as a responsible business.
Also, being a qualifying business only requires we partner with an Aboriginal business which can be a sole proprietorship. So really, we don't need to partner with a tribe, we just need an Aboriginal person to partner with. Although a tribe or more would certainly help with the lobbying for a mandatory set aside which is no doubt what you have in mind.
