Ontario has announced plans to expand the COVID enforcement blitz.

Moving beyond inspections and enforcement actions at big box stores like Walmart and Costco, the Ontario government plans to visit an expanded range of workplaces across Ontario.

Starting today, more than 300 officers will be supporting these blitzes, and will be visiting a variety of workplaces, including dealers and repair facilities.  The ultimate goal of this blitz is not punishment, but to ensure that the mandatory safeguards required of all essential businesses are being followed, for your safety, the safety of your staff, suppliers and your customers.

Please ensure that you are operating in accordance with the rules that allow you to remain operating.  For dealers, this means following masking and cleaning, safe distancing, appointment only for sales and repairs and test-drive protocols previously reported by the UCDA in earlier Dealer Alerts.  Please see our archives for past Dealers Alerts at https://www.ucda.org/dealer-alerts/

While punishment is not the desired result, dealers need to know that Corporations can be now be fined $1,000 for failing to comply with the orders under the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act and the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. Individuals, including employees and customers, can also be fined $750 for failing to comply with orders under the Acts.

For more serious violations a court can impose fines as high as $100,000 for individuals, and directors and officers of a corporation can be fined up to $500,000. Both could also receive terms of imprisonment of up to one year. The maximum fine for a corporation on conviction of an offence is up to $10,000,000.

For more details, the government’s announcement can be found here

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