New Episode
Short Summary
In this educational holiday episode of the Legacies Podcast, hosts Tom Ritchie and Wesley Bowles discuss Christmas movie rankings, upcoming holiday specials, and industry developments. They review recent updates from Jonathan Wilson concerning federal excise tax representations to the Minister of Finance, noting that as of 2023, approximately 36% of all Canadian CCAA (Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act) filings came from the cannabis industry. They also highlight a GoFundMe campaign by urbanistic to research post-packaging irradiation effects, discussing the need for standardized symbols. Graydon Welbourn, co-founder and Managing Partner of White Ash Group, joins the podcast to explore the cannabis recruitment landscape. Graydon outlines his background in tech recruitment and explains how he co-founded White Ash Group in 2017 to build a specialized firm for cannabis companies. Finally, David Bow (President) and Alexandre Gauthier (Master Cultivator), co-founders of Origine Nature, discuss the Quebec cannabis sector. They share insights into their indoor facility in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts and how they built a positive workplace culture, leading to the company’s recognition as one of Canada’s top employers.
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Check out what’s coming up this week on Legacies.
Graydon Welbourn Says: We are heading toward an industry of five major players acquiring high-performing mid-market operators. Profitability will come, but not with 900 separate companies fighting for the same shelf space.
Alex Gaucher Says: There is no bad weed—there is only badly priced weed. If you put the right product at the right price, consumers will buy it, share it with their friends, and build real brand loyalty.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, everyone! I’m your host, Tom Ritchie, joined by my partner in crime, Mr. Wesley Bowles! Wes, how are you feeling this morning?
Wesley Bowles Says: I am completely exhausted! This has been one of the busiest weeks of the year.
Tom Ritchie Says: We just finished shooting our full on-site Holiday Special, dropping on Christmas Eve. A quick reminder that Legacies is powered by Breadstack. Retailers, upgrade your e-commerce platform and elevate your online dispensary menus with Breadstack.
Wesley Bowles Says: To take a break from the grind, give me your top three holiday movies.
Tom Ritchie Says: Number one: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Number two: A Christmas Story. Number three: Home Alone. And yes, Die Hard is unequivocally a Christmas movie—it takes place at an office Christmas party, features Christmas music, has presents and snow at the end!
Tom Ritchie Says: A massive shoutout to Amy, John Prentiss, Ryan Brandt, and the entire Joint Craft team for hosting us inside their sensory evaluation room. They kept us fed with amazing veal sandwiches while we tore down and rebuilt our multi-camera mobile studio.
Tom Ritchie Says: We want to highlight an important grassroots research initiative from the team behind Urbanistic. They launched a GoFundMe campaign to conduct independent, scientific testing on the real-world effects of e-beam and X-ray irradiation on cannabis flower.
Wesley Bowles Says: Most existing studies evaluate flower immediately off the processing line. Urbanistic is studying how irradiated flower holds up after 30, 60, and 90 days inside commercial consumer packaging, as well as extended international transit to Australia and Europe, tracking terpene loss and cannabinoid degradation.
Tom Ritchie Says: Consumers deserve transparency and standardized labeling so they can make informed choices about whether their flower has undergone remediation or irradiation.
Tom Ritchie Says: Tanner Stewart and the Stewart Farms crew sent over a holiday gift box of artisan chocolates. They weren’t infused, but because they were packaged near their craft flower, they absorbed an incredible natural terpene aroma!
Wesley Bowles Says: My seasonal guilty pleasure is an ice-cold Mexican Coca-Cola in the classic glass bottle made with real cane sugar. It just hits differently during the holidays.
Tom Ritchie Says: Jonathan Wilson has been doing incredible advocacy work exposing the financial reality of Canadian cannabis. A 2023 briefing document submitted to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland revealed that **36% of all CCAA insolvency filings in Canada come from the cannabis sector**.
Wesley Bowles Says: That federal report explicitly stated that ‘no legal cannabis producers are consistently profitable.’ Yet the federal government granted an excise duty freeze to the domestic beer industry while maintaining punitive excise tax formulas on licensed cannabis operators.
Tom Ritchie Says: If provincial wholesalers and federal tax collectors continue taking hundreds of millions off the top while operators go bankrupt, the legal framework collapses. Support Jonathan Wilson’s posts, like and share them, and keep public pressure on our lawmakers.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, **Graydon Welbourn**, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of **White Ash Group**!
Graydon Welbourn Says: Hey Tom, hey Wes! Great to be here. Thanks for having me back.
Tom Ritchie Says: Graydon, before we dive into industry hiring trends, give us your top three holiday movies.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Number one: Elf. Number two: Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger chasing the Turbo Man doll. Number three: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, because the fellowship departs Rivendell on December 25th!
Tom Ritchie Says: How did you transition from mainstream corporate recruiting into building Canada’s premier cannabis search firm?
Graydon Welbourn Says: I spent three years at a national Canadian technology recruitment firm placing senior finance and engineering talent into tier-one banks and fintech companies. In one year, I generated over $2 million in billings for the firm and realized I had the drive to build my own agency.
Graydon Welbourn Says: In 2017, my older brother Jameson suggested applying my headhunting skills to the emerging cannabis sector. Traditional Bay Street recruiting firms wouldn’t touch cannabis due to blue-chip reputational risks, creating a massive opportunity for a specialized executive search firm. In 2018, I connected with my business partner Jerome, and we launched **White Ash Group**.
Graydon Welbourn Says: In the early days, we sat in coffee shops making hundreds of cold calls and LinkedIn outreaches daily. Landing client search assignments was the hardest hurdle. Today, we manage over 30 active searches a month across North America and Europe, with deep pre-vetted candidate pools across executive leadership, cultivation, extraction, quality assurance, and commercial sales.
Graydon Welbourn Says: In 2018 and 2019, LPs rushed to hire executives from big pharmaceutical companies and legacy breweries like Molson. Within six to twelve months, roughly 75% to 80% of those corporate hires walked away.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Traditional CPG executives were accustomed to massive support staffs and rigid departmental structures. When they arrived at a cannabis facility operating out of construction trailers with handwritten SOPs and volatile regulatory shifts, they experienced severe culture shock. Today’s successful cannabis leaders are agile, hands-on operators who thrive in dynamic, fast-moving environments.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Cannabis hiring moved in distinct evolutionary waves:
1. **2018–2019 (The Cultivation Wave):** High demand for head growers, master growers, and $400k figurehead executives.
2. **2020 (The Quality Assurance Wave):** Heavy hiring of QA directors and RPICs to secure Health Canada sales license amendments.
3. **2021–2022 (The Sales & Liquidation Wave):** Massive oversupply forced LPs to hire aggressive commercial sales teams to move bulk inventory.
4. **2023–2025 (The Data & Brand Strategy Wave):** Demand planners, sales data analysts, and trade marketing managers who understand retail sell-through velocity and supply chain precision.
Graydon Welbourn Says: A company’s hiring process is an exact microcosm of its operational health. If it takes an LP three weeks to schedule an interview, candidates know the organization suffers from decision paralysis.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Having a structured onboarding process—setting 30-60-90 day benchmarks, configuring software logins in advance, and aligning new hires with team culture—increases long-term employee retention by 100x. Speed without structure leads to costly turnover cycles.
Graydon Welbourn Says: During the capital rush, mid-level quality managers commanded $160,000+ salaries. When the capital bubble burst, compensation normalized to sustainable market rates around $100,000 to $110,000.
Tom Ritchie Says: Operators who survived learned that excessive executive overhead without positive cash flow guarantees financial failure.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Organigram’s acquisition of Motif Labs highlights the accelerating trend of multi-provincial consolidation. We expect to see five or six major national enterprises acquiring top-tier regional operators.
Graydon Welbourn Says: I am very optimistic about 2025. Companies are hiring thoughtfully, prioritizing data-driven demand planning, and building sustainable, profitable business foundations.
Tom Ritchie Says: Graydon, thank you for sharing your deep market insights! Anyone looking to hire elite talent should reach out to whiteashgroup.com.
Graydon Welbourn Says: Thank you, Tom and Wes! Always a pleasure.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome back! We are joined by **Dave Bowe** (David BĂ©dard), Founder & CEO, and **Alex Gaucher**, Co-Founder & Head of Operations at **Origine Nature**! Welcome, gentlemen!
Dave Bowe Says: Bonjour Tom, bonjour Wes! Thanks for having us on!
Alex Gaucher Says: Happy to be here, guys!
Tom Ritchie Says: You guys just got back from MJBizCon in Las Vegas. Settle the debate for us: what is your top holiday movie?
Dave Bowe Says: Number one: Die Hard! Number two: Die Hard 2! And number three: Home Alone!
Tom Ritchie Says: Tell us about your facility location in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts in the Laurentian mountains.
Dave Bowe Says: In 2016, prior to legalization, I visited 35 different municipalities across Quebec looking for a host community. Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts welcomed us with open arms, already having industrial zoning and economic development plans in place.
Dave Bowe Says: If you are planning an indoor cultivation facility, municipal alignment and utility infrastructure are critical:
1. Ensure the city has massive three-phase electrical capacity.
2. Rely on reliable municipal water systems with commercial reverse-osmosis filtration rather than unpredictable agricultural well water.
Dave Bowe Says: I spent 22 years in Montreal’s restaurant industry operating high-volume food franchises. In hospitality, gross margins are tight and inventory control is unforgiving. That discipline translated directly into commercial cannabis facility operations.
Alex Gaucher Says: I joined Origine Nature in 2020 after working with Aurora Cannabis and Tidal Health Solutions. Quebec consumers have a distinct cultural identity and fierce loyalty to Quebec-owned brands.
Alex Gaucher Says: The SQDC (Société québécoise du cannabis) is one of the best-run provincial distributors in Canada. Unlike other provinces where commercial data fees, slotting fees, and pay-to-play schemes distort retail shelves, the SQDC provides transparent sales data. In Quebec, 30% of sales are first-time discovery and 70% are repeat purchases driven purely by flower quality and fair pricing.
Dave Bowe Says: There is no bad cannabis—only badly priced cannabis. We harvest over 8.5 million grams annually. If a lot tests slightly out of spec, we don’t dump it on consumers under our premium label; we price it appropriately or repurpose it.
Dave Bowe Says: When an early hash release (*La Tuque*) didn’t meet our strict standards, we pulled the entire batch from SQDC shelves, went back to R&D, and reformulated it rather than risking our brand reputation.
Alex Gaucher Says: Our flagship cultivar, *Sage n’ Sour*, has been cultivated continuously for over five years across nearly 200 harvest cycles, producing over 16 million grams as Quebec’s best-selling sativa. Repeat consumers shop like wine buyers—they have their trusted weekly staple and occasionally sample a new experimental SKU.
Alex Gaucher Says: We introduce only one new curated genetic per year after rigorous internal R&D trials. This year we launched *Golden Goat*, which won immediate acclaim across retail and industry cups.
Alex Gaucher Says: We evaluate every batch using blind human sensory testing modeled after Rubicon’s Mickey and Jack Daniel’s barrel-tasting programs. Algorithms and lab numbers can’t replace the human olfactory palate.
Dave Bowe Says: We were mentored by legacy Montreal cultivation pioneers Steve Aboud and Mitch and Rich Kumar, who taught us that indoor growing requires working in harmony with plant biology rather than fighting nature.
Alex Gaucher Says: In addition to Quebec, Origine Nature exports bulk GACP flower to Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Africa.
Alex Gaucher Says: Canada possesses unmatched global cultivation advantages:
– Clean, abundant, low-cost hydroelectric power ($0.31/kWh in Europe vs. fractions of that in Quebec).
– Unlimited clean freshwater resources.
– Advanced post-harvest standardization and decades of indoor growing know-how.
Dave Bowe Says: Exporting high-grade flower internationally generates healthy gross margins without requiring massive retail sales teams in twelve separate domestic provinces.
Dave Bowe Says: Origine Nature was recognized as Canada’s **41st Best Place to Work in 2022** and **22nd Best Place to Work in 2023** among companies with under 100 employees—the only cannabis LP on the national list.
Dave Bowe Says: We maintain an employee turnover rate below 5% across 100+ team members and serve as the largest private employer in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts. True company culture means putting the right people in the right places, treating your staff like family, and investing in your local community.
Tom Ritchie Says: Dave and Alex, what you have built at Origine Nature in Quebec is a masterclass in operational discipline, employee care, and uncompromising flower consistency. Thank you for joining us on Legacies!
Dave Bowe Says: Thank you, Tom and Wes! We appreciate everything you guys do for the community.
Alex Gaucher Says: Thanks, guys! See you soon!
Jump to 01:28
Jump to 04:12
Jump to 03:35
Co-founder & Managing Partner
Graydon Welbourn is the co-founder and Managing Partner of White Ash Group, a specialized recruitment agency for the North American cannabis sector.
View Guest Profile ↗
Cannabis Industry Recruitment & Staffing
White Ash Group is a specialized recruitment and staffing agency for the regulated North American cannabis sector. Founded in 2017,...
Learn More About Partner ↗White Ash Group is a specialized recruitment firm for the regulated cannabis industry in North America. The company focuses on professional search, placing candidates across cultivation, extraction, retail operations, and executive leadership.
Origine Nature achieved this recognition through a comprehensive anonymous employee survey conducted by Great Place to Work. The survey evaluates employee trust, internal transparency, workplace safety, and team alignment.
Many cultivators use irradiation to control microbial levels and meet Health Canada standards. The research led by urbanistic aims to study the impact of irradiation after the product is packaged, reflecting what international and domestic consumers actually receive in hand rather than testing immediately post-harvest.
