Toronto/CMEDIA: Canada has collected over $5.4 billion in cannabis tax revenue since the drug was legalized for recreational use in October 2018.
While the federal government collected $1.2 billion, the remaining $4.2 billion went to provincial coffers with Ontario taking in the greatest provincial share of revenue of $1.5 billion followed by Alberta collected at just over $1 billion, despite having less than a third of Ontario’s population.
The most per capita tax revenue of any province went to Alberta pulling in about $210 per person, easily surpassing its nearest rival the Northwest Territories, which collected $135.80 per person followed by the Yukon at $126.35, Saskatchewan at $121.55 and Newfoundland and Labrador at $113.65 with Quebec getting just $55.31 per person.
Revenue below projections
Falling short of original projects with expectations to see $690 million over the first five years of recreational legalization Federal tax revenue fell.
Cannabis education spending by Health Canada was well below the original projection of spending about $21.6 million on education and prevention programs since recreational cannabis use was legalized.
Excise tax, store markups crushing cannabis industry, producer says.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Canada spent less than $500,000 on cannabis education and prevention programs in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 fiscal years. Since then the department’s cannabis program spending increased in each subsequent complete tax year and hit $2.3 million in 2024-25.
Since 2018 about $29.6 million has been contributed by the federal government to 26 other cannabis education and prevention programs.
Manitoba does participate in the federally managed cannabis taxation framework, and hence this data does not include tax revenue of that province,
The tax revenue data for 2025 is incomplete as it covers April 1 to Aug. 31.
