3 Overview of the Contraventions Act Program
3.1 Program overview
The primary purpose of the Contraventions Act Program is to establish a prosecution regime that reflects the nature of regulatory offences (as opposed to criminal offences). This prosecution regime rests on two pillars: the Contraventions Act and the Contraventions Act Fund.
The Contraventions Act
The Contraventions Act (the Act) allows the federal government to designate federal regulatory offences as contraventions, which may be enforced by means of tickets, instead of being systematically prosecuted under the summary conviction process established in the Criminal Code. The objectives of the Act are:
- to provide an additional procedure that may be used for the prosecution of contraventions, which reflects the distinction between criminal offences and statutory offences; and
- to alter or abolish the consequences in law of being convicted of a contravention, in light of that distinction.
The distinction between criminal and regulatory offences has practical consequences. While criminal offences are concerned with “seriously wrongful acts violating common standards of decency and humanity”, regulatory offences “are not necessarily wrong in themselves but (they are) prohibited for expediency”.Footnote 1 Most criminal offences are contained in a limited number of statutes, notably the Criminal Code. As for regulatory offences, they are contained in countless acts and regulations that are enacted at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels, and they cover a wide range of areas such as traffic and parking, licencing, the environment and habitat protection, recreational fishing and hunting, transport, dangerous goods, commercial and industrial activities, fisheries and agriculture, and public health, to name but a few of those areas.
All levels of government have implemented procedural frameworks to support the enforcement of these offences. Criminal offences are prosecuted through the summary conviction process, or by indictment in the case of more serious criminal offences. Regulatory offences are typically enforced using a ticketing system, or administrative monetary penalties (AMP), which are further discussed in section 4.1 of this report.
For an extended period, the federal government essentially relied on the summary conviction process to prosecute the regulatory offences for which its various departments and agencies were responsible and, as such, it stood in contrast to provincial and municipalities that were using a ticketing or an AMP regime. Having this summary conviction process as the sole option for all federal regulatory offences was seen as inefficient, which led to the adoption, in 1992, of the Contraventions Act.
The Contraventions Act includes two mechanisms for implementing a ticketing regime for federal contraventions:
- First, it provides for the eventual creation of an autonomous and comprehensive federal procedural framework to process federal tickets. These provisions of the Act cover all the key components of an autonomous federal ticketing regime, including the completion and service of contravention tickets; the commencement of proceedings and the options available to defendants; the designation of the proper courts; the trial procedures and other related aspects of the enforcement of these federal tickets. These provisions were adopted in 1992, but they have yet to come into force through an Order of the Governor in Council. As a result, they remain available, should the government ever decide to implement such an autonomous federal regime.Footnote 2
- Second, the Act makes it possible for the federal government to use existing provincial ticketing regimes to process federal contraventions. The amending provisions allowing for that option were adopted in 1996, and they establish the following two key steps:
- That the required amendment to the Application of Provincial Laws Regulations be made to authorize the use of a provincial ticketing scheme.
- That an agreement be signed with the relevant provincial government, in conformity with the Contraventions Act.
Once these two steps are completed, enforcement officers can start issuing contraventions tickets, which will be directed to the applicable provincial ticketing system for enforcement purposes. Nothing compels a provincial government to sign an agreement under the Contraventions Act, making this option entirely dependent on the will of a provincial government to sign such an agreement.
Since the second option has been the only one available, all contravention tickets issued to date have been enforced using the existing ticketing system in provinces where the regime is operational. This includes all provinces except Saskatchewan and Alberta. In addition, the contraventions regime is not yet operational in the three territories and on other federal lands, such as First Nation reserves.
In the absence of the contraventions regime, federal offences designated as contraventions must be prosecuted under the Criminal Code summary conviction process.
The Contraventions Act Program
The Contraventions Act Program consists of a range of coordinated responsibilities undertaken by Justice Canada, which are necessary for the implementation and the administration of the contraventions regime. These responsibilities include the provision of legal services in matters related to ticketing procedures; the designation of federal offences as contraventions; the required amendments to applicable regulations; the negotiation of agreements; the determination of appropriate measures related to language rights; the management of the regime in provinces; and the management of the transfer payment program referred to as the Contraventions Act Fund. Justice Canada also manages the FPT working groups, which are responsible for the implementation and administration of the contraventions regime in provinces and municipalities, and the Justice Department Study Group, comprised of Legal Services Units counsel.
The Contraventions Act Fund supports the implementation of measures that aim to ensure that provincial or municipal governments have the capacity to deliver services related to federal contraventions in a manner consistent with applicable language rights found in the Criminal Code (judicial services) and the Official Languages Act (extrajudicial services). These measures include the hiring of bilingual court personnel, language training, bilingual signage and documentation, as well as the costs that provinces or municipalities incur to manage and report on these funded activities.
3.2 Governance structure
Two groups within the Policy Sector’s Programs Branch at Justice Canada contribute to the ongoing management of the Contraventions Act Program.
- The Legal Services Division leads the negotiation of agreements with provinces and municipalities to enable the use of their ticketing schemes for the prosecution of federal contraventions. This includes any required amendment to the Application of Provincial Laws Regulations. In addition, the Division provides ongoing support to the Programs Branch, federal client-departments including their respective enforcement authorities, agencies as well as provincial counterparts. The Division provides legal services and advice on matters related to ticketing procedures, designating new federal offences as contraventions and required amendments to the Contraventions Regulations. The Division also supports training activities for enforcement officers, which are typically delivered in collaboration with provincial authorities and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Finally, the Division provides assistance on the creation and implementation of administrative monetary penalty (AMP) regimes, which may under some circumstances, play a complementary role to the contraventions regime.
- The Programs Branch’s Innovation, Analysis and Integration Directorate is primarily responsible for the ongoing management of the Contravention Act agreements funding component signed with participating provinces and municipalities. This includes management of the financial support provided to provincial and municipal governments, through the Contraventions Act Fund, to support the provision of services in both official languages. The Directorate monitors and collects all reports provided in accordance with Contraventions Act agreements.
3.3 Resources
Table 3 includes the allocated resources associated with the Contraventions Act Program during the period covered by this evaluation. The majority of resources are allocated to contributions provided to participating provinces and municipalities for bilingual service delivery.
Table 3: Allocated resources associated with the Contraventions Act Program
| Categories | FY 2020–21 | FY 2021–22 | FY 2022–23 | FY 2023–24 | FY 2024–25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operational costsFootnote 1 of Table 3 | $388,320 | $514,191 | $511,520 | $707,068 | $1,242,261 |
| ContributionsFootnote 2 of Table 3 Footnote 3 of Table 3 | $9,094,900 | $6,458,000 | $7,662,362 | $6,947,282 | $6,037,220 |
| Total | $9,483,220 | $6,972,191 | $8,173,882 | $7,654,350 | $7,279,481 |
It is important to note that Justice Canada does not provide a direct financial contribution to provincial or municipal governments to cover expenditures related to the processing of federal contraventions. Instead, current Contraventions Act agreements include clauses that allow provincial and municipal governments to retain the required portion of fines collected to cover these costs. Any surplus in fines collected is shared equally between the federal and provincial/municipal governments.
- Date modified: