After several applications for permits, municipal approvals and financing for his pot production company fell on deaf ears, Ali, 39, started to feel as if a stigma attached to his name was holding him back.
Ali is one in a rare group of racialized executives having success in Canada’s nascent licensed cannabis industry.
According to the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation and the University of Toronto, 84 per cent of executives and boards members at more than 200 licenced Canadian cannabis producers or their parent companies were white.
A serial entrepreneur, Ali started a real estate business with his brother, Wahid Ali, and by 2017 the duo started to assemble a plan for their cannabis business — but getting any bank to support their dream with a loan seemed insurmountable.