Graduated financial penalties for failing to submit mandatory hunter reports

Information provided by hunters through mandatory hunter reporting is important for managing wildlife in Ontario. It specifically helps the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) monitor wildlife populations, develop harvest plans and tag quotas, make changes to seasons and bag limits and inform other management policies.

Ontario’s hunters have been very responsive to the mandatory hunter reporting requirements that were introduced in 2019.  Reporting rates are now around 90% across all species and requirements, but that is still short of the desired and expected level of >95% compliance. Increased hunter reporting compliance leads to improved data, better management decisions and may lead to increased opportunities for hunters in some areas.

Experience in Ontario with previous hunter reporting requirements for certain species has shown that it is difficult to achieve and maintain high compliance with mandatory hunter reporting requirements without meaningful penalties that can be applied efficiently.

Amendments to O.Reg. 665/98 (Hunting) came into effect in 2022, which established a graduated penalty approach for mandatory hunter reporting where a hunter receives a $25 surcharge penalty for each failure to submit a mandatory report in accordance with the requirements and timeframe in regulation. The penalty must be paid before the hunter can purchase any relevant draw application, licence or tag for that species. If a hunter fails to submit a hunter report on two consecutive occasions for the same species, they are prevented from purchasing any relevant product for that species for one year. After one year, the penalties reset and the hunter would be subject to the $25 penalty if they subsequently fail to submit their report again.

Under the current approach, each financial penalty:

• is automatically applied to the hunter once the fish and wildlife licensing system detects the report has not been submitted by the deadline,
• is required to be paid as part of (or prior to) the hunter’s next purchase of the relevant product (generally in the following year),
• is based on each species and reporting requirement (i.e., if a hunter fails to submit multiple reports, they are charged a fee for each), and
• persists on the hunter’s account until they are paid and would not expire.

Proposal

The ministry is proposing regulatory amendments to eliminate the ‘prevent from purchase’ penalty as part of the graduated penalty approach for a second consecutive failure to report and replace it with an increased financial penalty.

A hunter will continue to receive a $25 surcharge penalty fee for each failure to submit a mandatory report. Under this proposal, for a second consecutive failure to report for the same species, a hunter would receive a $50 surcharge penalty. The hunter would continue to pay the $50 penalty until they submit a report for that species in accordance with the regulatory requirements and timeframe. This would reset the penalties and the hunter would receive a $25 penalty fee for their next failure to report.

No changes are proposed to the administration of the financial penalties.

The desired outcome of the proposal is that compliance rates with hunter reporting requirements will continue to improve and are maintained over time. This would provide improved reporting information to support wildlife management.

Regulatory impact analysis

The anticipated environmental consequences of the proposal are neutral. The proposal replaces one form of graduated penalty with another. The proposed modified graduated penalty approach is expected to compel most hunters to report. However, hunters who refuse to submit the required reports and are willing and able to pay the penalties could continue to apply in allocation or draw processes, purchase licences and tags, and hunt without ever reporting. If more hunters than expected are willing to pay, hunter reporting response rates and data quality may be negatively affected.

The anticipated social consequences of the proposal are neutral. The risk of receiving a $50 penalty for a second consecutive failure to report will be a concern for some hunters, but hunters are familiar with the requirements, many have developed a tradition of reporting and are unlikely to fail to report two consecutive times. Some hunters may see the higher penalty fee as less impactful than being prevented from hunting a particular species for a year.

The anticipated economic consequences may be positive. Any additional revenue generated from the proposed change (i.e., along with the $25 penalty fee already in place) would be directed to the ministry’s fish and wildlife special purpose account which supports the delivery of fish and wildlife management programs. The overall penalty approach is already driving high compliance rates, which over time are expected to reduce the amount of penalty fees collected.

The proposal does not impose new administrative costs to business.