The province recently rolled out the news that they are conducting a second licence lottery process which will include 50 new stores in the province.
As part of the process, the North region will have stores in Kenora, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Timmins.
"The whole approach to cannabis has been about the safety for our kids, safety for our roads and curbing the illegal market. In order to do that in northern Ontario we need to make sure each of the major centres has a cannabis retail outlet," MPP Vic Fedeli told Rogers Radio.
Fedeli says they've been working on this for some time, having analyzed the initial offering.
"The last time we planned for two in the north and I guess the presumption would've been that one would be in the northeast and one in the northwest, but both ended up in Sudbury, so Sudbury would be excluded from this round," he says.
With the second lottery, there's also a chance another cannabis retailer could pop up in the area.
"There are also eight specifically for First Nations communities and I would presume then that our area would be interested in that as well," Fedeli says.
