(Smiths Falls) A former subsidiary of Canopy Growth is waging a legal battle against the Canada Revenue Agency, which fined the cannabis grower nearly half a million dollars in 2020, for allegedly growing cannabis cannabis on a farm in Saskatchewan before obtaining a licence.
Posted yesterday at 5:07 p.m.
A statement filed in federal court last month by a numbered company owned by the Smiths Falls, Ont., business claims the tax agency erred in imposing a $434,611 charge on it because the company was producing cannabis in accordance with its license.
Canopy subsidiary 11.239.490 Canada is asking the court to waive or reduce the penalty imposed in November 2020.
According to her, the penalty stems from an outdoor grow facility she operated near St Louis, Saskatchewan, which closed in January 2021.
The facility had obtained a cannabis license effective June 21, 2019, and another under the Excise Act from the CRA in July, but the CRA accused it of growing plants there of cannabis before obtaining a licence.
The subsidiary claims that the crops it grew at this facility in 2019 and 2020 were destroyed and no profit was made because it was unable to process or extract the cannabis from the plants in the first year, and that the crop from the second year was used for research purposes.