Small-town Southwestern Ontario is pushing back against Ontario’s plan to cushion the fallout of legal marijuana with money, saying the funding formula puts small centres at a big disadvantage.

The province recently announced the second instalment that municipalities will get from a $40-million fund to help cover costs stemming from the roll-out of recreational marijuana use, including police enforcement, over the next two years.

But Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, the region’s senior civic leader, said four months into legal weed in Canada, municipalities have practically been an afterthought.

“The feds are taking their cut, the provinces are taking their cut, and municipalities, as usual, are sitting at the little table begging in the corner for some crumbs,” he said.

Some small-town mayors, in particular, are chafing at the province deciding how much each municipality gets based only on population figures.

“It certainly puts us at a disadvantage,” said St. Marys Mayor Al Strathdee, whose town will receive about $20,000.

“You put up a sign in London, you put up a sign in St. Marys, it costs the same amount of money. A lot of the costs are going to be the same, but we have a limited tax base.”

Strathdee said his main concern are cost increases for policing and emergency services and dealing with social issues arising from addiction.

He said the town northeast of London will probably end up using its funds for signs and awareness campaigns about the risks of pot consumption because the money simply won’t be enough to cover much else.

“The verdict is still out, but there will probably be some increased cost in police services and first responders, there will be increased costs to the health unit for education purposes, even to hospitals, so the money doesn’t go anywhere near to address those concerns,” Strathdee said.

While the money will be used, the amount some rural centres will get probably won’t be enough to make a big difference, said Greg McClinchey, Strathroy-Caradoc’s top bureaucrat.

“If you put it into perspective, we spend about $7.5 million in policing a year, so in that way $20,000 really isn’t a lot of money,” he said.

“And that’s not me taking a shot at the province, but frankly, in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t a huge amount of money.

“I think this might be a conversation that would be better placed two or three years from now, when we can look back and say, ‘This was the additional cost of policing.’ ”

Many municipalities have had concerns about legal marijuana use since late 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals swept to power vowing to legalize the practice and end Canada’s nearly century-long pot ban.

Besides the cost of enforcing the law against drug-impaired driving, there’ve been concerns about keeping the drug out of the hands of children and minors and policing where cannabis can be sold and consumed — costs largely shouldered at the local level. The $40-million fund was divided into two payments of $15 million, with the province setting $10 million aside to “help address costs from unforeseen circumstances.”

The money is meant to offset expenses such as increased police, public health and bylaw enforcement, training and increases in paramedic and fire services calls.

Officials with the Ministry of Finance, which is handling the funding, wouldn’t say if the extra $10 million could be used to support municipalities struggling to cover extra costs associated with legal pot.

“Further details will be provided at a later date,” ministry spokesperson Scott Blodgett wrote in an emailed response.

He also pointed to the government’s commitment to share 50 per cent of the revenue from pot sales taxes with municipalities if the province’s portion over the first two years of legalization exceeds $100 million.

“The Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the City of Toronto have been asked to work with the Ministry of Finance to assess potential uses and impacts of these funds,” Blodgett said.

But even that’s small relief, said Bradley, who said municipalities should have received a portion of the revenue from Day 1.

For Bradley, the main issue remains impaired driving, noting that only one out of the more than 100 officers with the Sarnia police is trained to deal with impairment by drugs.

“That certainly isn’t sufficient by any shape or form,” Bradley said.

He also said the limited funding smaller municipalities will receive will force them to be creative in how they use it, which is why he believes municipalities should be given leeway to decide how to use those funds.

“Trust municipalities to do the right thing because we have a constituency that watches everything we do, probably much more than they do at Queen’s Park, so give us the freedom to do what we want to do with that money,” he said.

HED: CANNABIS LEGALIZATION FUNDING

Provincial money over the next two years:

London: $1 million

Chatham-Kent: $272,280

Sarnia: $94,971

St. Thomas: $98,347

Stratford: $83,395

Strathroy-Caradoc: $24,850

Woodstock: $50,963