On November 14, 2011, Bill 9, the Natural Resource Compliance Act (the "Act"), received royal assent in British Columbia. The Act can now be brought into force in BC by way of regulation.
The purpose of the Act is to make it easier for compliance and enforcement officers to hold offenders accountable for violating natural resource legislation. To accomplish this goal, the Act authorizes the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (the "Minister") to designate individuals or groups of people as "natural resource officers" ("NROs") and to specify the duties and powers of these NROs. At present, enforcement officers have the authority to enforce only the specific statute under which they are designated. Under the Act, however, NROs will have the authority to enforce a broad range of natural resource legislation. The Minister's intention is that NROs will allow for faster and more efficient responses to violations that span numerous natural resource statutes, since only one officer will need to respond. Although the Act can apply to any prescribed enactment in the natural resource sector, the exact scope of the Act remains unclear. The Minister has expressed that the Act is intended, at least initially, to apply only to the statutes that are under the purview of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Such statutes include the Forest and Range Practices Act, the Forest Act, the Wildfire Act, the Wildlife Act, and the Water Act.
The Minister has stated that, in order for the Act to apply to the statutes under the scope of other ministries, "significant consultation" with those ministries will be required to determine whether or not there is a need for the type of enforcement provided by NROs in those natural resource sectors. Further uncertainty arises with respect to the scope of powers and duties of NROs, as there have yet to be any regulations passed under the Act.
Notwithstanding the uncertainties discussed above, it is clear that, once brought into force, the Act is intended to create a more responsive form of enforcement in the forestry sector in B.C.
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