Compliance and enforcement report: Cannabis inspection data summary 2024-2025

Table of contents

• Overview
• Measures initiated by Health Canada
• Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes inspection highlights
• Compliance activities related to promotions prohibitions
• Licence holder inspection results
• Definitions

Overview

In fiscal year 2024-25, Health Canada maintained its ability to conduct inspections in accordance with the cannabis program's risk-based approach and focused on activities that represented the highest risk to public health and public safety. The program continued to conduct offsite and hybrid inspections, and compliance verifications, while also continuing to conduct onsite planned inspections, including compliance verifications and inspections of registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes. Health Canada continues to strengthen its oversight to reduce the risk of misuse of the cannabis for medical purposes framework, while maintaining reasonable access to cannabis for medical purposes for the people of Canada.

This summary includes results for cannabis inspections conducted from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025. During this fiscal year, a total of 889 inspections were conducted under the Cannabis Act and its regulations (Figure 1), which included 197 inspections of registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes. In addition to ongoing compliance verification activities related to promotions prohibitions (see below), 26 inspections targeting promotions activities were conducted at both licenced and non-licenced establishments over this period. Furthermore, between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, a total of 155 additional activities, such as sampling, seizure and detention, and destruction, were conducted under Cannabis Act and its regulations (Figure 2).

During this fiscal year, Health Canada issued 37 non-compliant inspection reports to licence holders under the Cannabis Act and its regulations. Examples of issues observed included: non-compliances related to good production practices (GPP), unsatisfactory retention of documents and information, and not conducting activities as per their responsibilities. For more information, please refer to Table 1 Licence holder inspection results below.

Figure 1: Text description

Types of inspections	Number of inspections
Regular	437
Targeted	101
Compliance verifications	128
Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes	197
Promotions inspections	26
Total	889

In addition to the abovementioned inspection activities, Health Canada conducted the following additional activities between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025 under the Cannabis Act and its regulations (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Text description

Activity type	Number of activities
Sampling activities, Samples may be taken for testing to confirm compliance with the Cannabis Act and its regulations. This includes, but is not limited to, testing for microbial and chemical contaminations, pesticides, and follow up on reported adverse reactions and complaints.	58
Compliance and enforcement activities (other than inspection) for registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes, such as conducting seizures and destructions.	57
Compliance and enforcement activities conducted for licence holders such as seizures and detentions, stop sales and warning letters.	40
Total	155

Measures initiated by Health Canada

Health Canada may take enforcement actions to address non-compliance or to mitigate risks to public health or public safety. These include, but are not limited to, issuance of warning letters, seizure and detention of products, licence suspension or revocation.

As a result of the 889 inspection activities undertaken between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, Health Canada's Cannabis Inspection Program issued 37 non-compliant inspection reports to licence holders under the Cannabis Act and its regulations, and initiated the following escalated compliance actions:

• 1 seizure and detention of products
• 1 destruction
• 2 warning letters issued to formally advise licence holders of their non-compliances and to request corrective measures
• 10 stop sales initiated

Regulated parties must take corrective actions during or after the inspection to address any noted deficiencies or deviations from the legislative or regulatory requirements.

For more information, consult the Licence holder inspection results section below.

Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes inspection highlights

Health Canada continues to strengthen the oversight of persons authorized to produce a limited amount of cannabis for medical purposes. This includes:

• enhancing the verifications of applications where risk factors of public health or public safety are identified, including where the health care practitioner has authorized a high daily amount of dried cannabis, and applications with multi-unit alternate production sites, such as those with sites that are not the primary residence of the applicant.
• continuing and increasing collaboration and engagement with key stakeholders, including law enforcement and municipalities.
• continuing the proactive sharing of information with provincial and territorial health professional licensing authorities.
• applying powers to refuse or revoke a registration on the grounds of public health and public safety.
• increasing the focus on compliance promotion with registrants.

Between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, 197 inspections were conducted in the following locations:

• 99 in British Columbia
• 74 in Ontario
• 19 in Quebec
• 5 in Alberta

Of the 197 inspections completed, 93 inspections received a level 3 rating (most severe), 56 inspections received a level 2 rating, 37 inspections received a level 1 rating, and 11 inspections were not rated. For the definitions of each level, see the Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes inspection ratings section.

Health Canada reviews the observations made during these inspections and takes a graduated and proportional enforcement approach to address any risks to public health and safety. Based on the 197 personal and designated production inspections conducted between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, to date, Health Canada revoked or refused 50 registrations, and additional actions are currently ongoing or under consideration.

As part of the follow-up to these inspections, Health Canada sends compliance letters to educate personal and designated registrants of the requirements of the Cannabis Act and the Cannabis Regulations. These letters provide personal and designated registrants with general information regarding their responsibilities and obligations as a registered person, outline other requirements, and provide general information about the compliance and enforcement tools available at Health Canada.

To address the risk of abuse of the medical access program, Health Canada also refuses or revokes registrations based on actions taken by law enforcement and requests information from health care practitioners to substantiate applications for high daily amounts.

Compliance activities related to promotions prohibitions

In addition to the specific inspection activities noted above, Health Canada regularly verifies compliance with the promotional prohibitions under the Cannabis Act for any person conducting these activities.

Between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, Health Canada created 436 cases of potential non-compliance related to promotions. This resulted in 130 actions with regulated parties, which may include one or more of the following: warning letters, compliance emails or letters (where action, including following up with Health Canada is required by the recipient), administrative monetary penalties and compliance promotion emails or calls (which provide information to regulated parties to enhance understanding on the Cannabis Act and how to comply). In the order of highest to lowest priority of actions, during the reporting period, Health Canada initiated:

• 68 compliance emails or letters
• 62 compliance promotion emails or calls

Licence holder inspection results

Inspection results can be found in Table 1, which provides inspection data for licence holders from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025. Details include licence holder's name and the province or territory where they are located, inspection start date, inspection type, whether sampling was conducted, classification of observations made, inspection compliance rating, and any measures initiated by Health Canada. The cannabis inspection data is also available through the Open Government Portal.

For additional information, please see the list of Licenced cultivators, processors and sellers of cannabis, and the list of Laboratories authorized to conduct analytical testing for current holders of a Health Canada issued licence to conduct these activities under the Cannabis Act.

Definitions

Types of inspections

The types of inspections are described as follows:

Sales inspection

Conducted on specific sections of the Cannabis Regulations to monitor and verify compliance of a licence holder when they intend to sell a cannabis product for which they are not currently authorized.

Regular inspection

Conducted to monitor and verify compliance with the requirements under the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

Targeted inspection

Conducted to assess specific requirements under the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

Compliance monitoring projects

Compliance monitoring projects are projects focused on a specific program area that use inspections, compliance promotion, and/or sampling of products to proactively gather risk intelligence.

Compliance verification

Actions taken to verify compliance in response to information regarding known or suspected non-compliance with the applicable requirements of the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes inspection

Conducted to monitor and verify compliance of the requirements for persons registered to produce cannabis for their own medical purposes or for production of cannabis by a designated person as defined under Part 14 Division 2 of the Cannabis Regulations.

Promotions Inspections

Conducted to assess compliance with promotion requirements as defined in the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

Definitions of observations

An observation is a deficiency or deviation from legislative or regulatory requirements that is noted by an Inspector during an inspection and documented in the inspection report.

An observation is classified by the following types:

Critical observations

A critical observation describes a situation that is likely to result in a risk to public health or public safety, or that involves fraud, including a clear risk of cannabis or cannabis product being diverted to or inverted from an illicit market or activity. A critical observation represents the most serious deviation or deficiency from the Cannabis Act or its regulations.

Major observations

A major observation describes a situation that may result in a risk to public health or public safety, or may involve fraud, including the potential risk of cannabis or cannabis product being diverted to or inverted from an illicit market or activity. A major observation represents a serious deviation or deficiency from the Cannabis Act or its regulations.

Minor observations

A minor observation describes a situation that is neither critical nor major but is a deviation or deficiency from the Cannabis Act or its regulations. Minor observations would not likely pose a risk to public health or public safety.

Inspection ratings

An inspection can be assigned a compliant or non-compliant rating, based on the number and severity of observations noted during an inspection.

Compliant rating

A compliant inspection rating means that, at the time of the inspection, the licence holder has shown its activities comply with the applicable requirements of the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

A compliant inspection rating may be assigned even when observations are present or corrective actions are required.

Non-compliant rating

A non-compliant inspection rating means that, at the time of the inspection, the licence holder has not shown its activities comply with the applicable requirements of the Cannabis Act and its regulations.

Registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes inspection ratings

Level 1

An overall inspection rating assigned to a personal and designated production inspection, where the observations noted are not likely to result in a risk to public health or public safety, or pose a risk of cannabis being diverted to an illicit market or activity.

Level 2

An overall inspection rating assigned to a personal and designated production inspection, where the observations noted may result in a risk to public health or public safety, or potential risk of cannabis being diverted to an illicit market or activity. Further enforcement action may be considered to prevent non-compliance or to return the regulated party to compliance.

Level 3

An overall inspection rating assigned to a personal and designated production inspection, where the observations noted result in a clear risk to public health or public safety, or risk of cannabis being diverted to an illicit market or activity. The non-compliances are considered severe, and further enforcement action may be required to prevent risk to public health and public safety.

Not rated

A classification applied following a personal and designated production inspection, wherein the registration of a registered person has recently expired (within 45 days) or is in a reinstatement status. This classification is assigned when it is determined, through inspection, that the said individual is not cultivating cannabis at the time of inspection, and so a representative assessment of compliance cannot be completed.