Ruth Chun, Law’06, General Counsel with Newstrike Brands Ltd., checks on her high-growth company’s music-enhanced product at its greenhouse in Beamsville, the heart of Ontario’s fruit belt. (Photo by Dave Bastedo, official photographer for The Tragically Hip)
Ruth Chun, Law’06, General Counsel with Newstrike Brands Ltd., checks on her high-growth company’s music-enhanced product at its greenhouse in Beamsville, the heart of Ontario’s fruit belt. (Photo by Dave Bastedo, official photographer for The Tragically Hip)

Ruth Chun, Law’06, has joined the legal professionals putting down roots and proposing the rules for Canada’s complex new sector – cannabis

If you’re a legal professional suddenly involved in the brave new world of Canada’s cannabis industry, as Ruth Chun is at Newstrike Brands Ltd.*, you may have to prepare for a different kind of work experience. First, there are all those plants – more specifically, the pot plants. Then there’s the music you have to play to the plants. “It’s a scientific fact: music assists with their growing,” Chun explains. “Of course, we’re playing Tragically Hip songs to ours.”    

That’s because Newstrike’s partners include Kingston-based rock band The Tragically Hip. Newstrike, which owns licensed producer Up Cannabis Inc., has two Ontario growing operations, one a state-of-the-art indoor facility in Brantford, the other a greenhouse in the fruit belt’s Beamsville. Newstrike has also partnered with Neal Brothers Inc., a Canadian food specialty company, to create and distribute cannabis edibles when the regulations allow, later this year. 

All this partnering has meant a varied and groundbreaking new legal career in cannabis for Chun, who joined Newstrike in Toronto in February 2017. “I’m at the forefront of a nascent industry while its laws are being drafted as we speak,” she muses. “That’s been a real joy for my legal career, as has being in-house and seeing how the laws and regulations actually get put into practice as we grow the product, package and sell it.”

Adult-use cannabis became legal last October, with the legalization of other cannabis categories due to follow a year later, so in February Chun completed a submission to Ottawa on the regulations proposed for three of those categories: edibles, concentrates and topicals. “After October, sales of these products become provincial responsibilities, so Newstrike is dealing with each one individually. It’s all quite complex.” 

Seeing legal professionals working in the cannabis industry takes some getting used to because of pot smoking’s past stigma. “At first,” Chun laughs, “I described myself as ‘working in pharma.’ For my parents, it’s still my ‘in-house pharma job.’” 

When it comes right down to it though, it’s still the practice of law. Chun says, “We fended off a hostile takeover while testing the new takeover rules for the first time, did two equity financings, raising over $100 million last year, and also a convertible debenture the previous year. We’ve done various private M&As, some public company investments, supply agreements with seven provinces, and agreements with various vendors.” Despite the industry myths, it doesn’t leave a busy counsel much time for refreshing walks through the company’s greenery.

Before Newstrike, Chun’s career took her abroad – first to London as an associate at Shearman and Sterling, then to Windhoek for seven years, five as a Director of ENSafrica, Africa’s largest law firm, and later Hollard Insurance’s first female executive committee member and Head of Legal and Compliance (2015-2017).  

I’m at the forefront of a nascent industry while its laws are being drafted as we speak.

It was a Queen’s Law exchange to the Netherlands’ University of Groningen that first whetted her appetite for international work, she says. “Experiencing the international flavour of the Queen’s Law program through that exchange opened my eyes to a law degree’s many possibilities.”  

That vaunted Queen’s alumni network has blossomed since Chun’s foray into the marijuana sector through Newstrike’s then-Executive Chairman Scott M. Kelly (Artsci’93). Two Law’06 classmates, Ranjeev Dhillon and Matt Maurer, are cannabis practitioners with whom she interacts regularly at industry events, and yet another, Sarah Crowe, assisted with Newstrike’s greenhouse purchase.  

Chun adds that the well-rounded law education she received at Queen’s is helping in her current position when it comes to “being able to pivot to whatever needs to be addressed next. I think the Queen’s Law curriculum is very good for that.”

Which also may be why she’s found it so easy and enjoyable to embrace her new job – plants, music, and all.

*Since this interview, Newstrike has entered into a definitive arrangement agreement under which HEXO Corp. of Quebec will acquire all Newstrike shares. 

— Georgie Binks