Health Canada Reinstates CannTrust License for One Facility

Embattled Canadian cannabis company CannTrust has had the licenses for its Fenwick Perpetual Harvest Facility reinstated more than three months after it submitted the paperwork to Health Canada.

The company’s federal licenses were suspended last September after Health Canada found the company had grown and sold cannabis in and from unlicensed rooms, built two rooms at one of its facilities without approval, and didn’t maintain documents in a way that allowed it to complete an audit in a timely manner.

The violations at the company’s facilities forced it to put 12,000 kilograms of cannabis “on hold” in July 2019 after Health Canada discovered the unlicensed rooms at the company’s Pelham, Ontario facility. Two days later, Danish company StenoCare quarantined oil derived from the facility.

The following month, the company’s auditor, KPMG, withdrew its financial audits of the company saying they were completed with unreliable information from representatives – namely former Chief Executive Peter Aceto and former President Eric Paul, who were fired after emails emerged showing they knew about the illegal grows.

In a statement, CannTrust said they would “immediately recommence operations” at the Fenwick facility but “cannot provide an exact timeframe for when its products will be available in the market,” which depends on Health Canada’s reinstatement of the Vaughan facility, which was at the center of the company’s non-compliance scandal. CannTrust filed the reinstatement of the Vaughan facility in late April.

The company said it “remains without meaningful revenues and has terminated or laid-off a significant portion of its workforce” since the Health Canada action.