By Christian Granholm

They say one of the great tragedies facing of our nation is the brain drain caused by talented university graduates seeking lucrative contracts in the United States.

But everyone forgets the real talent-stealing tragedy which occurred  29 years ago this week, when Wayne Gretzky, playing for the loathsome Los Angeles Kings, scored two goals against his former team, Canada’s own Edmonton Oilers.

Like a hit man lured away from the Family that nurtured and protected him, only to take up employment with our rival in the pricey part of town, Gretzky fired two shots at the country who bore and loved him, thereby shattering Gordie Howe’s all time NHL record by reaching 1851 points.

Wayne. It still hurts.

October 15^th

As eager cannabis enthusiasts line up outside the newly-opened government portals across Canada to purchase some of that sweet, dank THC, they are being met with shortages and some disappointment as many of the  most sought-after strains are sold out.

Where, they cry, is all our pot?

Blame ze Germans.

Wayland Group (CSE:WAYL) inked a deal for 9,000 kg of Canadian cannabis flowers to supply Germany’s 2,200 pharmacies over the next three years.

Wayland saw the opportunity back in 2017 and pushed to become 1 of only 6 companies worldwide who pass and exceed the EU-GMP standards for pot.

The deal announced Oct. 15^th will see so many tons of our cannabis going East that our burdgeoning home market can rightfully feel a little jealous.

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Go Cobalt Mining Corp. (CSE:GOCO) discovers three large (1.6 – 2 kilometre wide) magnetic bodies in the Yukon. The magnetic bodies are of similar size and susceptibility to other large Iron Oxide Copper Gold deposits such as the Olympic Dam mega deposit.

Ahh, the Yukon- Canada’s Texas. Their hats say ‘MAGA’, but ours say ‘MEGA (deposit)’.

October 16th

As cannabis consumers continue to cry, “Where’s the weed?” THC BioMed Intl (CSE: THC) prepares to grow it for them.

They plunked down $410,698.85 for an additional property in Kelowna, next to the lot they currently own.

Much like their end-users prior to legalization, THC operates an all-cash business, so they snapped up the property for hard currency – no mortgage necesarry.

Everyone knows the smart dealers never did operate on credit.

October 17th

Delaying legalization did have one positive effect that is hard to argue against: it allowed the public to become better educated on the pros and cons of pot.

Overwhelmingly, wherever education was prioritized, an acceptance for the end of prohibiton was met with positivity.

Oct. 17^th was legalization day , but the fight didn’t end on this day. The need to educate will be ongoing as almost 100 years of prohibition will take time to undo in the minds of many consumers and voters.

In fact, like pot, you could say… it’s a growing industry.

Cannvas Medtech Inc. (CSE:MTEC) will fight that fight by installing a network of learning kiosks in high-traffic retail areas across Canada to improve accessibility to free and unbiased education about the potential benefits of medical and adult-use cannabis.

October 18^th

MGX Minerals Inc. (CSE: XMG) receives delivery on their petrolithium and advanced wastewater treatment system near the Alberta oilsands.

The commercial-scale 750 barrel per day system is currently in final phase electrical connection and will be in operation shortly. MGX expect to begin processing concentrated evaporator blowdown wastewater under an existing agreement with an oilsands SAGD operator in early November and

additional wastewater containing lithium from a second oilsands operator shortly thereafter.

The Google Principle is one that I think we’ll see being applied to more publicly traded companies this century: (go ahead and make a profit but) don’t be evil.

So if your company is going to make a mess, clean it up (or hire someone else to do it for you).

Won’t all our moms be so proud of us?

October 19th

So I’ve started to come to terms with the reality that anything I do online isn’t truly private anymore. Somewhere, someone is storing every click I make.

The scale of all that data, multiplied by a few billion users, is enormous and growing. While several companies are consumed by the headaches of how to store all that data, the really smart guys are figuring out how to sell Big Brother the power he’s going to need to run it.

Hydro66 Holdings Corp (CSE:SIX) completed 8 megawatts of power generation, with the system in place to deliver it to where Orwell would be most horrified: a High Performance Computing enterprise and

blockchain colocation data center in Sweden.

The complex offers a variety of data services for large data centers some of which may not be entirely for spying on my Youtube habits.

Driverless vehicle tech, machine-learning, AI, mapping, and weather simulation are just a few of the things that Hydro66 can power.

The Overall

It feels like we all boarded the world’s most exciting roller coaster back on Aug 14^th when the market was at 745.75, and we’ve just been climbing the first hill this whole time.

On Monday, Oct. 15^Th, we reached the crest at 1040.07 and started the rush down the back side. By Friday we knew it wasn’t a false dip at 973.87 and the car has been gripping the track as it continues to roll into the curves.

It’s been an exhilarating ride and continues to excite as we head into the tail end of the year.

New Listings

The CSE welcomes the following new listings:

Crest Resources Inc. (CRES)

Orion Nutraceuticals Inc. (ORI)

Grenville Gold Corp. (GVG)

Valens Groworks Corp. (VGW.WT)

The Closer

Legalization is obviously the big story on Canadian’s lips (puff, puff, pass).

Watching a brand new industry emerge onto the CSE has been one of the most exciting things this reporter has seen happen to the stock market, period.

The polarization of potential investors has been unlike anything I have ever witnessed.

Some would tell anyone who listened (and many that didn’t want to hear it) that we were all fools who were throwing our money into a well that the government or public opinion could slam a lid on at any moment.

Others ran through pell mell through the streets laughing uncontrollably, “It’s a licence to print moneyyy!”

Whatever your views are: government-sanctioned drug dealing, life-saving medical cure, ridiculously risky investment or perhaps the best thing that’s happened to your portfolio since you started trading, legalization is here.

And the truth is the bulk of Canadians welcomed legalization as only our great nation can.

Rather polite queues with a cup of Tim’s in our hands, shuffling good-naturedly towards the entrance, hoping we make it through the door before the good deals are gone, but knowing that there’s plenty more coming down the pipe, if we just wait.

So we hold the door open for our neighbours, chatting about the cold and the hockey scores and whatnot as we encourage everyone to use responsibly.

Except for Wayne Gretzky.

He just bought a $6.5 million mansion in Santa Monica, which, last I checked, hasn’t legalized recreational marijuanna, so no pot for him.

Suck it, Wayne.