National Fine Recovery Program

The PPSC is responsible for administering the National Fine Recovery Program (NFRP) pursuant to an assignment issued in 2007 by the Attorney General of Canada under paragraph 3(3)(g) of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act. The mandate of the NFRP is to recover outstanding federal fines ordered against individuals and companies convicted under federal statutes.

The PPSC’s NFRP is a division of the Corporate Service Branch and currently employs eight Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) located in different regional offices.

Outsourcing of Fine Recovery

Following a strategic review in 2010, a decision was made to outsource the collection of outstanding fines to increase the efficiency of the program.

In an effort to optimize the recovery, the PPSC has enlisted the services of a private collection agency. As part of the call for tender and award process, a privacy impact assessment was undertaken to ensure that information could be exchanged with a private company. The initial contract was tendered in 2016 and ended in February 2019. A new competitive process for the contract renewal was initiated and after the evaluation of new bids, the same company was awarded a two-year contract, with two option years available.

In addition to the services provided by the collections agency services, the PPSC relies on Refund Set-off Program to recuperate unpaid fines by sending files to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to recover through tax refunds and GST rebates.

Fines Recovered

The information provided below is a summary of PPSC’s fines inventory and a breakdown of recovery by collection agencies for this fiscal.^{Note 9}