Contraventions Act Evaluation, Final Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Department of Justice Canada initiated the evaluation of the Contraventions Act to better understand the results achieved in using the ticketing system included in the Act. This evaluation plays a complementary role to those evaluations that the Department already conducted of the Contraventions Act Fund, which provides assistance in the delivery of services in both official languages. The evaluation is also aligned with the objectives of the 2009 Treasury Board Evaluation Policy, which expanded the scope of activities that must be evaluated.

Parliament passed the Contraventions Act in 1992 to establish a ticketing system that could be used to enforce certain federal statutory offences designated as contraventions. This new system was expected to better reflect the distinction between criminal offences and regulatory offences and to alter or abolish the consequences in law of being convicted of a contravention.

The methodology used to conduct this evaluation included a review of documents, studies, legislation, and case law relating to regulatory offences. It also included interviews with a wide range of key informants from federal, provincial, and municipal departments, ministries, enforcement agencies, enforcement officers, court managers, prosecutors and other stakeholders.

Key findings from the evaluation are as follows:

1. Relevance

The full and effective implementation of the Contraventions Act represents a critical step in ensuring that federal statutory offences are consistently enforced across Canada. One of the strategic outcomes of the Department of Justice Canada is to promote a fair, relevant and accessible justice system that reflects Canadian values. One of these values is the rule of law which requires from governments that they establish a stable, predictable, and orderly statutory framework. In the absence of the Act, it is doubtful that such a framework could be implemented in the area of federal statutory offences. A de facto failure to enforce federal statutory offences would point to a systemic problem, which the implementation of the Act helps to address. The Act is therefore consistent with the Minister of Justice's role as a steward of the Canadian justice system.

Without the ticketing system included in the Act, enforcement authorities face structural barriers that limit their ability to adequately fulfil their mandate. Apart from exceptional circumstances, the summary conviction process included in the Criminal Code is not an appropriate scheme to process less serious federal statutory offences. In the absence of a ticketing system, enforcement officers are often left with no option but to issue a largely meaningless warning instead of genuinely enforcing federal statutory offences.

Findings from this evaluation indicate that the scope of statutory offences designated as contraventions should be expanded. There is little rationale for excluding other less serious statutory offences that meet the overall requirements of the Act (e.g., limited fine, no imprisonment). Such an expansion would contribute to achieving the stated objectives of the Act. To this end, the Department may need to review its current guidelines relating to the designation of federal statutory offences as contraventions. These guidelines currently limit the scope of offences that can qualify as contraventions. In light of the fact that enforcement officers can either proceed with a ticket or by summary convictions, depending on circumstances, it may be beneficial to widen the current scope these guidelines have created.

2. Performance

2.1. Implementation across Canada

The implementation of the Contraventions Act has proven to be an incremental process. First passed in 1992, the Act was essentially not implemented until Parliament amended it in 1996 to allow (among other things) the federal government to sign agreements with provincial governments to use their respective prosecution schemes to process federal contraventions. On that basis, the Department initiated discussions with provincial authorities, which led to the signing of agreements in seven provinces. The ruling that the Federal Court rendered in 2001 on language rights forced the renegotiation of existing agreements and delayed the negotiation of new agreements.

Technically speaking, the Act is operational in all provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan and Alberta. This means that just over 80% of the Canadian population now resides in a province where contraventions tickets may be used. Justice Canada has been in negotiation with the remaining provinces.

The fact that the Act is not yet operational in three provinces is a concern. It creates a situation whereby the exact same unlawful behaviour that would contravene a federal statutory offence designated as a contravention is treated differently, based on the geographical location of the offender. This could trigger legal risks, particularly in provinces where the Act is not operational, in light of the fact that offenders are exposed to greater penalties.

2.2. Tickets issued

At the time of the evaluation, the bulk of contraventions tickets that enforcement officers were issuing were associated with driving-related offences (speeding, parking, etc.) occurring on federally owned land. Other key areas include offences related to recreational boating, the fisheries, railway safety, and commercial vehicle drivers. A number of factors, which are documented in this evaluation report, have delayed or limited the issuance of contraventions tickets.

2.3. Impacts of the Act

Once fully implemented, the ticketing system included in the Act will better equip enforcement officers. It provides an essential tool that stands between a warning and a formal charge laid in accordance with the summary conviction process included in the Criminal Code. The ability to issue contraventions tickets provides enforcement officers with a much more efficient tool to fulfill their mandate. In particular, it allows them to spend as much time as possible "on the ground", monitoring compliance of their assigned protected areas. Widely used for provincial statutory offences, the ticketing system is also needed for the effective enforcement of federal statutory offences.

At the time of the evaluation, not all federal offences designated as contraventions were readily enforced. A number of barriers still remain. In some cases, administrative issues needed to be addressed before enforcement officers could be allowed to issue tickets. This explains, for instance, some of the delays in using the ticketing system in relation to the Fisheries Act. In other cases, enforcement officers still face competing demands, and they may not be in a position to focus on federal statutory offences, including those designated as contraventions. This is particularly the case for police services that must also enforce criminal offences. Finally, some federal departments have yet to fully embrace the Contraventions Act as a central tool to enforce the federal statutory offences for which they have authority.

The implementation of the Act has had a limited impact on the court system. Only a small portion of all contraventions tickets that enforcement officers issue end up being challenged in court. In the absence of the ticketing system included in the Act, it is doubtful that enforcement officers would in fact proceed by way of summary conviction. It is more likely that enforcement officers would have limited themselves to the issuance of a warning.

For those tickets that do end up being challenged in court, they represent only a fraction of all trials held for statutory offences. The impact of these trials is therefore limited.

2.4. Efficiency and Economy

There is no doubt that the Act provides a cost-effective approach to enforcing federal statutory offences designated as contraventions, as long as one can assume that these offences are, in fact, being enforced. Simply issuing warnings is less costly than issuing contraventions tickets. The problem, however, is that warnings are largely meaningless. They certainly have no legal consequences. The only other meaningful alternative is to proceed by way of summary conviction, which is dramatically less efficient and is more costly than issuing contraventions tickets.

The Act offers many benefits to both enforcement officers and citizens. For officers, the Act provides a much needed tool, allowing them to readily enforce statutory offences. In particular, the ticketing system allows enforcement officers to focus time and effort on the enforcement of offences, while spending less time and effort on the legal procedures associated with the summary conviction process. For citizens, those who are issued a ticket have the opportunity to settle immediately by pleading guilty and paying the fine. In particular, the ticketing system avoids the need for alleged offenders to appear in court, which could trigger legal costs that exceed the amount of fine the person is facing.

In terms of economy, the evaluation presented a brief cost comparison of the summary conviction process and ticketing scheme of the Contraventions Act. From this illustrative cost comparison, it was found that the ticketing scheme of the Contraventions Act is a much more economical approach to the courts than the summary conviction process.