At the recent Mountain View County policies and priorities committee meeting, Aurora Cannabis Inc. officials announced intentions to expand its 55,200-square-foot medical marijuana production facility near Cremona.
Cam Battley is Aurora's senior vice-president of communications and medical affairs. He joined the company, whose headquarters are located in Vancouver, last March.
He told the Gazette that Aurora's plans to invest between $10-20 million into further expansion is a response to the "remarkable" growth in the use of medical cannabis.
The publicly-traded company's most recent operational update states that as of June 30, more than 4,500 active patients had registered with Aurora. The milestone was reached less than six months after Aurora was authorized to sell product under the federal government's Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations.
Aurora sold 100,000 grams of medical cannabis in June, an increase from 69,000 grams in May. By the end of this month, the facility is expected to be producing at full capacity.
The Cremona-area plant employs as many as 40, which could increase with expansion, Battley said, adding that they make it a priority to hire locally.
"We want to continue to build a Mountain View-grown success story. We want to employ local contractors, we want to hire more local long-term employees," he said. "We want to be seen as a good neighbour and a real partner and a cornerstone of economic development in Mountain View County."
Aurora's building is located in the county's Division 2. Patricia McKean is that area's councillor and said Battley's presentation also covered a community engagement process with area residents.
There hasn't been much of a relationship between Aurora and the county to this point so he is trying to build one, McKean said.
"I think their intention is to go door to door, talking to neighbours, finding out what some of the concerns are. I had provided some emails from people I heard concerns from. I believe he has reached out to those, and the others, he's looking for their contact information to have a sit-down. There was some talk of doing a group community meeting," said McKean.
If expansion is going to happen on Aurora's current footprint, a land use bylaw amendment approved by council would be required. The county intends to keep large-scale operations like Aurora's in industrial parks.
An alternative could be to rezone the land to a Direct Control District.
"But I think personally, my feeling is, they need the community on side with this because they're the ones who (live) with the impacts," she said.
Aurora finished construction of its facility in 2014, well before Battley was hired. In hindsight, he thinks the company could have been more open and is committed to improving communication.
"I think it's fair to say we could have communicated much better and the nice thing is, the opportunity exists for us to do better this time, to make sure that we're transparent and cooperative and give people all the information they need," Battley said.
"We're going to make sure we do it in partnership every step of the way with council and the community."
"I think we've turned out to be very quiet and good neighbours. What we want people to know is our success should be the community's success. As Aurora grows and we develop into a national and global leader, the community should be part of it, they should be informed and they should be able to count on us for a certain level of community leadership and good corporate behaviour."
"We want to be seen as a good neighbour and a real partner and a cornerstone of economic development in Mountain View County." CAM BATTLEY, Aurora VP
