Our policies

This policy and procedures address how we handle complaints that come to us about our conduct from members of the public and our regulated businesses. This policy does not cover consumer complaints regarding business activity in the marketplace, our management of complaints made against suppliers, or requests for reconsideration of determinations.

Read Conduct Complaint Handling Policy and Procedures.

To meet our mandate of educating consumers, we may publish information about our actions or decisions.

Read our policy for publishing our licensing and enforcement actions.
Read our publishing procedures.
Explore our recent enforcement actions.

Administrative monetary penalties are financial penalties that we impose for certain violations of the laws we oversee. These penalties may be given as part of our inspection or investigative processes.

Every contravention has a base penalty amount, based in part on the seriousness of the infraction. From the base amount, our decision makers then have the discretion to recommend a specific penalty amount within a certain range.

Read our calculating administrative monetary penalty policy and procedures (which includes the base penalty amounts).
Read our compliance inspection administrative penalty policy and procedures.
Read our enforcement actions administrative penalty policy and procedures.

By law, when we make a determination (a formal decision or action), the business or individual has the right to request a reconsideration (an appeal). There is a fee for this process and whether the business or individual is licensed or not, the same amount will apply.

What’s the fee to request a reconsideration? For licensed and unlicensed businesses, the fee will be noted in the correspondence we send you about our determination. If you are one of our licensed businesses, you can also find the fee by selecting your industry and going to the Know your fees menu. 

Read our reconsideration policy and procedures.

By law, we have the authority to set fees for the sectors we license and regulate. We also have obligations when it comes to fee setting.

Read our fee setting policy and procedures.

By law, we have the authority to request and verify the existence of criminal convictions for anyone applying for a licence with us. This is done to make sure that licensed employees and senior officers, partners and proprietors of our regulated businesses do not have criminal records that are relevant to their work.

Read our criminal record checks policy and procedures.

This policy speaks to how we will handle licence renewals dependent on the date received or incomplete submissions.

Read our late submission policy and procedures.
Read  All industries renewal fee policy and procedures.

We do not offer refunds for application fees and charges (including renewal applications and submissions), or contributions to funds, unless the incorrect payment occurred on our behalf or if a cash security needs to be returned to a licensee (after the prescribed waiting period).

This ensures that the costs we incur while processing transactions for applicants and licensees are recouped, even if the transaction is denied, cancelled or withdrawn. This policy ensures applicants and licensees are aware, so they can choose to act accordingly when submitting applications and submissions to be processed. It also allows for error by returning funds in certain situations.

By law, all persons who engage in the designated activities of debt collection, bailiff, debt repayment, home inspection, funeral directing, and embalming must be licensed with us. Our website gives anyone the ability to search for our licensed businesses and individuals. This search feature performs a search on an individual’s name and displays certain information about them if the individual is currently licensed with us.

This policy outlines the rationale and what information is shared publicly about our licensed individuals.

Read our individual licensee online search policy and procedures.

Applicants for a licence and existing licensees who want to operate their business from a residential location must follow a certain process and have specific obligations. 

Read our operation of licensed business from a residential location policy and procedures.

This policy explains how we manage and respond to media requests.

Read our media relations policy.
Visit our media room for information and resources for reporters.

Anyone who wants to use our Restricted Cougar digital movie trailers must first get approval.

Download the Restricted Cougar usage policy and application form.