Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Nanaimo medical-marijuana job fair attracts hundreds

Tilray filtered through more than 400 applications for jobs at its Duke Point medical marijuana factory during a unique hiring fair over the weekend.

Tilray filtered through more than 400 applications for jobs at its Duke Point medical marijuana factory during a unique hiring fair over the weekend.

Selected candidates were invited to a downtown hotel where they interviewed for jobs to cultivate, sell, trim, secure and ship cannabis in the first event of its kind ever to hit Nanaimo.

Tilray's medical marijuana facility will open April 1 when law changes take cannabis growth out of homes and into large-scale production.

Tilray vice-president Philippe Lucas said in an interview on Sunday that job fair attendees were "enthusiastic."

"We had a lot of people with significant cultivation experience," he said. "Some of it cannabis experience, some of it not."

Lucas said many people got a kick out of talking about their previous experience with drugs at a job fair and "rather than hiding it, it became an asset."

He added that company management was "incredibly impressed" with the quality of applicants, although everyone applying with Tilray must agree to a full criminal records check. The company is being especially diligent with people who will be working directly with marijuana plants.

Tilray currently plans to hire 40 to 60 people in addition to its existing management staff.

"Our estimate of staffing keeps going up," Lucas said. "We're going to do a hiring push over the next 10 days just to get us through our launch on April 1 then we'll probably do another (hiring fair) after that."

Lucas said anyone who missed this weekend's job fair can still go to www.tilray.ca and apply under the "careers" section.

"Our goal is to produce the best cannabis supply in Canada," he said.

"And, really, if you're going to be producing the best cannabis in Canada, you've got to start with B.C."