When the provincial government came out with the list of communities that are eligible for cannabis dispensaries, White Bear Nation was not on that list. However, they are looking at ways to be able to change the government's mind when it come to the sale of legal cannabis.

"We're being proactive in this regard," explained Chief Nathan Pasap. "We're looking at the research part of it, the policy and legalization in other areas throughout the world."

"We want to work collaboratively with the provincial government. We would like to work with them. Being that they've gone ahead an unilaterally imposed their permit system and they've only allotted three to three First Nations in northern Saskatchewan."

"White Bear would like to have our own dispensary, possibly our own production facility as well. We're doing our research."

He added that they hope to have a meeting with the ministry as well as the SLGA in the near future.

"We feel like we can utilize this opportunity as well, just like everybody else. And help our community with job creation and that will help with mitigating poverty, ending poverty amoungst our people. We're no different than any other part of Saskatchewan, we just want to have the ability to create jobs and create some economic development and some wealth for White Bear."

"We would also utilize the opportunity to help with programming in regards to any addiction issues. We want to deal with those things to make sure that our youth are well informed and our community is well informed in regards to cannabis and both the medicinal and recreational use of it."