Penalties With No Public Ledger

No published per-case penalties — but per-day-escalating Offence Act fines and court injunctions, applied out of public view.

A full-text search of the Islands Trust public record turns up no document stating a specific penalty assessed against a specific property. The tools, however, are severe:

  • Bylaw Notice tickets — up to $500 each under the Local Government Bylaw Notice Enforcement Act.[1]
  • Offence Act prosecution — up to $2,000 default, or $50,000 for "major" infractions, plus costs[3] — and every single day a contravention continues is a separate offence, so exposure compounds daily.[2]
  • BC Supreme Court injunctions.

With no public ledger and in-camera handling, residents have no way to know whether enforcement is consistent or fair — only that the penalties can be ruinous.

References

  1. Denman Island LTC — 2024-02-13 Agenda ($500 Bylaw Notice cap, BEN) ↩
  2. Denman Island LUB No. 264 penalty clause (Offence Act; per-day separate offence) ↩
  3. BC Offence Act prosecutions — Province of British Columbia ↩