{"id":5232,"date":"2025-09-22T12:53:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T19:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/?p=5232"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:23:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:23:44","slug":"engagement-opportunity-administrative-penalties-timelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2025\/09\/22\/engagement-opportunity-administrative-penalties-timelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Engagement opportunity: Administrative penalties timelines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Natural resource permitting plays a significant role in the government\u2019s strategy to strengthen and diversify our economy. B.C. is working across the natural resource sector to streamline permitting, remove barriers and delays, eliminate duplication, and simplify processes while maintaining high environmental standards and our commitment under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.<\/span> <span data-contrast=\"none\">As part of this work, teams across the natural resource ministries were tasked with identifying areas that would increase efficiency, remove redundancy, and\/or reduce administrative burden. Opportunities with the highest potential for impact and timely implementation are being considered for recommendation to Government.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/14015\">Water Sustainability Act<\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\"> (WSA) came into force in 2016 and modernized B.C.\u2019s water laws to better manage and protect stream and groundwater supply. Regulations associated with the WSA, enacted in 2024, allowed financial penalties called <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/1_2024\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">administrative penalties<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">. They are applied to individuals or organizations who fail to comply with:\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">Legal requirements,\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">An order given by a ministry official, and<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">A requirement of an authorization (permit, license, approval etc.).\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">B.C. is exploring ways to better align the timelines and processes for administrative penalties under the WSA with the administrative penalty frameworks under other natural resource sector statutes like the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/02069_01%22%20\/l%20%22division_d2e8660\">Forest and Range Practices Act<\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\"> and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/04031_01%22%20\/l%20%22section24.1\">Wildfire Act<\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">. These changes are anticipated to support a wholistic approach to managing the water resource as B.C. looks to reduce the volume of applications required for activities.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The survey closed October 17, 2025.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Learn more about our other proposals to improve natural resource permitting <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/govtogetherbc\/engagement\/natural-resource-permitting-improvements\">on the govTogetherBC website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Natural resource permitting plays a significant role in the government\u2019s strategy to strengthen and diversify our economy. B.C. is working across the natural resource sector to streamline permitting, remove barriers and delays, eliminate duplication, and simplify processes while maintaining high environmental standards and our commitment under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2025\/09\/22\/engagement-opportunity-administrative-penalties-timelines\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-engagement","category-front"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5232"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5642,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions\/5642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}