Durham’s cannabis industry — who can get a job in the “green rush”?
More than 1,000 jobs will be created in Clarington over the next five years
This is the third article in a short series ‘Oshawa: The front line of changing work.’ Under the cloud of General Motors’ impending closure, SCP has spoken to people throughout the Durham region to understand what the changing landscape of work means at a local level.
In Clarington, Ontario, which lies just east of Oshawa, a whole new industry is about to explode: cannabis.
Right now, only around 150 people work for three licensed producers in the area. Over the next five years, though, more than one thousand jobs are expected to be created — with five more producers preparing to open shop.
Canada’s legalization of recreational marijuana has tended to dominate the headlines, but recreational use is just one aspect of the “green rush.” The cannabis sector is surging thanks to years of innovation in medicinal use, research and development, and the upcoming legalization of new products such as edibles.
Unlike the skilled trades boom discussed in our last article, cannabis is a whole new industry. This brings both huge opportunities and completely fresh challenges. Thousands of jobs could be created, but who can break into this new sector? And what can the community do to help them?
A moving target
It’s difficult to know exactly what jobs cannabis producers need and who will fill them, even for policymakers at the centre of the boom.
“They’re so busy growing, it’s hard to get a clear picture of the evolving workforce needs,” said Bonnie Wrightman, Manager of Business Development at the Clarington Board of Trade & Economic Development, a local non-for-profit. Her team has been working to attract the producers to the region, providing assistance like seeking out land options and helping with paperwork. Partly thanks to their relatively affordable land, Clarington has become a cannabis hub where more producers are looking to set up shop. “There’s a cluster mentality,” Wrightman explained.
One of the producers moving to Clarington is CannaPiece Group, a new business looking to build a 625,000-square-foot facility. Armed with the largest cannabis oil extraction device in the country, they expect to add hundreds of jobs themselves in the next couple of years. Like most of the producers in Durham, their focus is on cannabis for medicinal use.
“A lot of workers are used to things like shift work, maybe having to do repetitive jobs”
“We will have jobs anywhere from quality assurance to trimmers, growers, assistant growers, IT technicians, mechanical technicians, office admin, customer service,” said Ray Rasouli, Cannapiece’s Founder and CEO. “What we need the most is day-to-day operators,” he said, and these jobs should be translatable from other sectors. “An electrician is an electrician, regardless of the industry.”
Transitioning into cannabis
In light of General Motors’ impending plant closure in Oshawa, the Clarington Board of Trade have applied for a grant to help with the displacement of workers, and cannabis employers have expressed an openness to hire outgoing GM workers.
Jobs on the production line, for example, could translate effectively to the cannabis sector. “A lot of workers are used to things like shift work, maybe having to do repetitive jobs,” said Mallory Bodnar, Office Manager at Weed MD in Toronto. “If you’re a trimmer, you might have to be trimming for eight hours.”
Some other jobs, however, require people from a more specific background. “Something I’ve heard in the industry is the lack of being able to find really good quality people that have the knowledge of cannabis,” said Bodnar. Especially for cannabis growers and master growers, who run whole facilities, “they want to see people with a background in plant science or biology,” she said. “Cannabis is quite a finicky plant to grow.”
At CannaPiece, which is in the process of getting its license, growers actually own small units in the facility themselves and will sell their fresh cut cannabis to the company, which will run every other aspect of the operation. This is taking advantage of the Canadian Cannabis Act’s provision for “microcultivators,” who can grow cannabis in 200-square-metre facilities, and provides an opportunity for self-employment without the complications of managing a business.
“Where were the best growers? They were obviously in the black market,” explained John Mutton, Principal at CannaPiece and Mayor of Clarington from 1997 to 2006. “This is a way of jumping this side of the fence and legalizing their operation and their life.”
CannaPiece have created their own in-house training with a private career college, which consists of a four-week hands-on course. Meanwhile, the industry is looking for ways to integrate into post-secondary education. For example, Durham College has created a course for the business of cannabis, Niagara has a course focused on growing, and Seneca College are soon to launch a course to train people in quality assurance.
However, their moves into cannabis are in the early stages, and some people in the industry feel they haven’t moved quickly enough to catch up with surging demand. Creating new courses doesn’t happen overnight, though. For example, building educational courses in areas like horticulture and and testing requires significant, expensive infrastructure, and licensing typically takes 18–24 months, said Peter Garrett, Manager of Government Relations at Durham College.
Bringing the community onside
Another significant barrier to the “green rush” is stigma, said Mallory Bodnar. A misunderstanding of cannabis is felt keenly across the industry, which can hold people back — from potential employees to training colleges.
In order to gain full acceptance in the community, it’s important that cannabis businesses are “leaders of legitimacy,” said Wrightman, which means engaging with and educating the community about their work. Clarington’s first convention on the cannabis industry will be held next spring, and they are looking to invite citizens to come and learn about the sector and its job opportunities.
A key selling point will be their appetite to hire local. For many years, General Motors played a large role in growing the local economy in Durham, and the community hopes that the growth of cannabis could have a similar effect. “I know there’s an appetite for the industry to hire local,” said Bonnie Wrightman, and grow the local economic base.
“If you offer them a job in their community, they will come back… That’s two or three hours they can spend with their family”
“Everything that we need,” said Rasouli from CannaPiece, “we’re going to try and source locally. We want to receive the support from the community.”
It’s also an entirely practical decision. Growing cannabis plants, the staff need to be there almost every day to care for them, he said, including in awful weather. And by reducing commuting times, he hopes to attract workers who might usually find employment in nearby Toronto. “If you offer them a job in their community, they will come back,” Rasouli said. “That’s two or three hours they can spend with their family.”
Staying ahead
In the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis, Clarington has a huge opportunity to help its cannabis sector grow. Inevitably, as the industry grows around the world and laws are relaxed, competition from the United States, Mexico and other countries is bound to increase — especially where important costs like energy tend to be much lower, and since land prices in Clarington have begun to rise with the new demand.
Finding the staff, building the right training, and educating the community will all be essential if Clarington is to build on its head start. In this new industry, there is no pre-existing road map for hiring and training workers, most of whom will never have worked in the cannabis sector. This makes it even more important to understand and react to the true needs of employers, using a demand-led and sector-focused approach.
As the legislation continues to evolve, policymakers in Durham have to learn on the job themselves. “In the economic development world, this is not usual,” Wrightman said. “This industry is just moving so darn quick.”
