Ontario's Premier-in-waiting Doug Ford is facing new calls from the Green Party to turn a provincial plan for legalized marijuana sales on its head.
Party leader Mike Schreiner has argued that the best way to bust up the black market is to strip the government of its retail monopoly.
Ford responded Thursday by saying he will take a second look at Ontario's plan for marijuana retail with mayors from across the province, but he isn't about to hand the industry over to the private sector.
"This is a road that we have to tread carefully. We've never [gone] down this road before," he told reporters at a news conference in front of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. "My priority is to make sure we protect the children."
"We're going to make a decision after we talk to caucus, but I also said we'd keep it in the LCBOs because they have the structure already put together," he added.
And despite Ford saying he doesn't believe the government should "stick its nose into everything," he says his government will consult with local municipalities across the province before considering any changes to the current planned structure of marjiuana sales.
Ford was at the generating station to announce his commitment to keeping it in operation until 2024, protecting 4,500 hundred jobs within Durham Region and another 3,000 throughout the province.
The incoming premier also expressed his vision to build subway lines to suburbs including Markham and Pickering - which are currently serviced by GO trains. He said light rail trains such as the ones planned in communities across Ontario are 'antiquated.'
"We're going to focus on being the most modern transit system in the world," he said. "We're going to build rapid underground transit."
"Folks in Pickering eventually will be able to hop on the subway and get [to] downtown Toronto," he added. "People of Markham, and the outlying areas over time, will be on a subway to make sure that we get traffic moving."