Making the grade: Kap partnering to bring medical marijuana plant to town.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: NEWS

The Town of Kapuskasing is playing the waiting game to hear whether the community and its partner will be approved for a medical marijuana production facility.

The town has been in discussion with CannAssist, a distributor for medical-grade marijuana, since 2014.

CannAssist proposes building a 29,000-square-foot facility at the Kapuskasing Airport where medicinal marijuana would be processed and readied for sale to clients.

Andre Robichaud, Kapuskasing's economic development officer, said the partnership with CannAssist represents an opportunity for the town to get involved in a new, emerging industry, and with that comes jobs.

"For a community the size of Kapuskasing, that's pretty substantial when you're talking about 40 new jobs," Robichaud said. "We look at it as outside money, too; it's not like the retail or a restaurant --this is new money coming into the community, so that's very important when it comes to economic development."

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Though it's unclear how many of those jobs will be available to local residents, Robichaud said the town is already thinking ahead.

"It may not be like mining and forestry where these skill sets will be readily available, especially at the higher end jobs," he said. "But our plan is to maximize the local economic impact of the project, and if the colleges have a role to play in there, or some training providers in town, we'll make sure they get that opportunity."

Because standards for medical marijuana facilities are so stringent, it has taken other producers anywhere between two and three years to get government approval to go ahead, but Robichaud is hopeful confirmation can come sooner.

"Ideally, we'd like it to be in the 2016 construction season," he said. "We know that there's a small window for...