JANUARY 2019 | BUSINESS ELITE CANADA 5
and moving to Mexico in 2008. The
closure left over 600 people out of
a job and, in a town of about 9,000
people, the impact was far reaching.
To compound the problem, the Rideau
Regional Centre also closed, laying off
another 800 people.
Though a difficult time, without doubt,
Smiths Falls focused on the positive.
The former mayor, Dennis Staples,
said at the time, “Over the years, we’ve
had other plants that have come and
gone. Each time a plant has closed,
something else has come along.”
Did it ever.
In 2014, Bruce Linton of medical mari-
juana company Tweed Marijuana Inc.,
made a phone call to Smiths Falls in
hopes to turn the old Hershey factory
in a cannabis production and opera-
tion facility. At the time, medicinal
cannabis was a very new industry in
Canada, but Smiths Falls saw that the
potential in Linton’s vision. That confi-
dence paid off: Smiths Falls was about
Tweed Growing Plants
