The Province is creating a unified agency to bring together several compliance and enforcement functions from across the natural-resource sector, enhancing environmental protections and supporting a more fair and predictable business environment. 

The BC Compliance and Enforcement Agency (BC-CEA) will take effect Wednesday, July 1. By consolidating several enforcement functions from natural-resource ministries, the change will improve consistency and timeliness of services, enhance accountability, and achieve efficiencies by bringing enforcement, compliance and investigations, as well as corporate and digital services, into a single integrated model that supports more co-ordinated operations, better data alignment and stronger, more consistent enforcement.

The new agency will operate within the Ministry of Environment and Parks, and will bring together several compliance and enforcement functions from across the natural-resource sector, including BC Conservation Officer Service (Ministry of Environment and Parks), Natural Resource Officer Service (Ministry of Forests), Compliance and Environmental Enforcement Branch (Ministry of Environment and Parks), Compliance and Enforcement (Environmental Assessment Office), Service Transformation Branch (Ministry of Environment and Parks), Regulatory Effectiveness and Sector Integration Branch (Ministry of Environment and Parks). 

The BC-CEA will also take on administrative monetary penalties for the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals, and BC Parks, as well as licensing sanctions under the Wildlife Act for hunters and anglers.

This change is structural and administrative. It centralizes leadership, governance and oversight, while maintaining existing statutory authorities and front-line service delivery.

The functions of these entities, such as enforcement, compliance and investigations, as well as support for policy and corporate services, will operate as part of one integrated agency with more than 400 staff.