Health Canada officials say, while they can’t be certain, they are reasonably “confident” Canada will have enough legal pot to meet demand once October 17 rolls around.

At a technical briefing on the new cannabis regulations Wednesday, officials said they can’t say with absolute certainty what the supply situation will look like on day one. But federal and provincial governments and the cannabis industry have been “making every effort” to ensure there will be product on shelves on opening day.

“We with our provincial and territorial partners, as the regulator, I think we’ve taken a number of decisive steps to be confident,” said a Health Canada official. “Having a well-functioning, supplied system when the Act and regulations come into force is critical.”

When Colorado legalized cannabis, it saw blockbuster lineups on day-one and then ran into a supply crunch. Initial demand is hard to estimate because it’s not immediately obvious how many people will turn to the legal product or when.

Vice News reported back in December that while a number of forecasts have suggested there won’t be enough supply, Health Canada’s own estimates suggest there won’t be a shortage. A range of estimates have been thrown around. The Parliamentary Budget Officer suggested in a report that within the first year, Canada could consume somewhere between 378 and 1,017 metric tonnes of legal cannabis.

Health Canada officials noted Wednesday the government had changed how it processes licenses under the medical cannabis regulations in the lead up to legalization, ensuring the existing industry has been able to prepare. There are now 111 licensed producers of cannabis.

“We’ve been working very, very closely across all provinces and territories now for over two years with very, very careful planning across all the jurisdictional lines to ensure that we have as clear an understanding as possible about the state of readiness, what the retail space will look like in all provinces and territories,” the Health Canada official said.

“There are limits of course to which we can go to declaring with absolute certainty what the supply will be on opening day,” the official added. “I can just sort of indicate that all levels of government working with the industry have been making every effort to ensure that when opening day occurs, there will be products.”

Health Canada announced the final regulations that accompany the Cannabis Act Wednesday – hundreds of pages that lay out specific details on rules and enforcement – ranging from licensing categories and plain packaging rules (packages have to be childproof and smell-tight) to what kind of marijuana products can’t be sold, including cannabis eye drops.

The cannabis regulations are expected to be published in the Canada Gazette, the government’s official newspaper, on July 11.

They will come into force October 17, the same day the Cannabis Act does, making marijuana legal for non-medical consumption and ending nearly a century of prohibition.