BarTalk December 2003
Volume 15, Number 6

By Christine Mingie

Yes - under the new Local Government Bylaw Notice Enforcement Act (the “Act”), if you haven’t paid your parking fees, you may find that there is a parking ticket in your Palm Pilot e-mail (an “e-ticket”) before you even leave the parking lot. Or if your dog barks all night, you may wake up to discover that you have been served (as it were) with an e-ticket.

The Act is an entirely new approach to local government bylaw enforcement. Under its provisions, minor bylaw disputes will be dealt with at the local government level instead of through the provincial court system. The Act is intended to address concerns about the expense and time involved in bylaw enforcement through the provincial court system, particularly minor bylaw infractions which are typically at the bottom of the court lists.

Municipalities can adopt the new system by: designating bylaw contraventions that can be dealt with under the new system; setting a penalty amount; establishing a time frame for paying or disputing notice of a bylaw contravention; and establishing a dispute adjudication system. The Act creates a ceiling of $500 as the maximum amount for fines or administrative penalties that can be dealt with under the new system. Matters where the amount at issue is more than $500 will continue to be resolved through the provincial court system.

Municipalities may appoint “screening officers” whose function will be to review a bylaw enforcement notice before a dispute adjudication is scheduled. Screening officers will have the authority to cancel or confirm the bylaw notice and to enter into a compliance agreement with the person who received the bylaw notice. Under a compliance agreement, a person who received a bylaw notice would accept liability for the contravention and commit to an agreed-upon course of action (such as paying fines over time or keeping the dog quiet at night).

If a compliance agreement isn’t reached, the matter is referred to an adjudicator for resolution. Adjudicators will likely be private arbitrators paid prescribed fees to resolve the bylaw disputes on behalf of the municipality. The Attorney General will establish a roster of qualified adjudicators for the province and for municipalities adopting the new system.

The Act also modernizes the hearing structure for bylaw disputes by enabling hearings to take place by way of an oral hearing in person, by video conference or by telephone. The hearing can also take place and be resolved entirely in cyberspace, if available. Allowing disputes to be resolved online is the most far-reaching aspect of the introduction of the Act. Square Trade, an online dispute resolution service provider for e-Bay, handled over 45,000 e-commerce disputes in less than a year. It would take the B.C. Supreme Court more than 30 years to resolve an equivalent number of civil disputes at trial, so the potential for increased efficiency is substantial, in terms of both time and money, by moving to electronic methods of adjudication.

Under the Act, local governments that establish a bylaw notice dispute adjudication system are responsible for administering and funding the system, paying the adjudicators and paying the costs of administering the roster. The Act allows municipalities to recoup some of those costs by collecting a $25 fee from every person who is unsuccessful in a dispute adjudication hearing.

Determinations made by an adjudicator are final and although they may not be appealed, they may be reviewed on a question of law or lack of jurisdiction under the Judicial Review Procedure Act within 30 days after the determination is made.

The government has been working with the district of West Vancouver, the district of North Vancouver and the city of North Vancouver to attempt to create one new system for all three communities as a pilot project.

Christine Mingie is an articled student at Lang Michener and a member of the BarTalk Editorial Board.

This article originally appeared in the December 2003 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.