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Administrative Penalties

Last updated on October 25, 2018

Administrative penalties are financial penalties imposed on a person or a business for non-compliance with a regulatory requirement.  Administrative penalties may be an appropriate response to non-compliance where a regulated party contravened a regulatory requirement, and:

  • an advisory, warning or violation ticket does not adequately reflect the severity of the contravention
  • an order or administrative sanction is not appropriate for the circumstances or would cause undue hardship
  • the time and cost of prosecution is not in the public interest, or
  • it is appropriate to recover the financial benefit the regulated party received as a result of the non-compliance or to recover the costs to government of remediating damage to Crown resources.

Maximum penalty amounts are prescribed  by regulation, ranging from $2,000 to $75,000. The statutory decision makers who issue the penalties consider all mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the non-compliance.

Read the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy's Administrative Penalties Fact Sheet (PDF, 207KB).

Did you know?
Curb Recycling

Under the Recycling Regulation of the Environmental Management Act, producers of recyclables are required to take responsibility for the life-cycle management of their packaging and paper products. To date, nine administrative penalties have been issued  for failure to meet this requirement.