The Investigation and Enforcement Bureau (IEB) is comprised of OPP Officers, fully integrated as a Bureau within the AGCO. The OPP Bureau is assigned to the AGCO and is fully integrated into AGCO operations, to streamline, standardize and improve investigative response. The IEB is comprised of the Investigations Branch (IB) and the Intelligence and Investigative Support Branch (IISB). These branches provide investigative expertise and effective information sharing to external law enforcement, regulatory and industry stakeholder agencies to ensure integrity and public safety within AGCO regulated industries.

IEB Investigation Branch

Occurrences

TABLE 4 – Number of IEB Investigations

Gaming Enforcement Branch

Gaming Investigation Units

TABLE 5 – Occurrences at Casinos and Slot Machine Facilities

Eligibility Investigations Unit (EIU)

TABLE 6 – Eligibility Investigations

Strategic Partnerships

Compliance Services (CS) recognizes the benefits of collaborative working relationships with police services and other regulatory bodies. Throughout 2018-2019, CS continued to seek out new strategic partnerships and collaborative approaches to promote compliance among all sectors regulated by the AGCO. 

In this fiscal year, CS led the implementation of the Ottawa Compliance Project focusing on the ByWard Market area, in collaboration with municipal compliance bodies including by-law, public health, fire, and police. The project established baseline awareness seminars for front-line compliance personnel to increase their awareness of key compliance concerns for the participating agencies and established an efficient process to refer items of concern to the responsible agency. Based on the results of this pilot, further opportunities to partner with additional communities will be explored.

Service Strategy and Experience

In March 2019, the AGCO created a new Service Strategy and Experience Branch to initially build upon and complete through the objectives of Service Experience 2020, an agency-wide initiative to define and deliver an optimal service and regulatory experience to its customers. Service Experience 2020 plans to elevate the agency’s service to customers, across all lines of business, by enhancing the way the AGCO supports its customers at every point of interaction based on Guiding Principles to establish customer-centred services with clear service standards, offer multiple channels of contact, to be “digital by default,” and include self-help options.

iAGCO and Service Improvements

To create a more streamlined and digital experience for AGCO applicants and registrants, the agency continued its phased approach to iAGCO online services:

• Phase 1 was launched on May 29, 2017 for SOP applications and Liquor manufacturers’ licensing
• Phase 2: January 29, 2018 for all Liquor licences. Online submission of complaints and inquiries was also introduced in this phase
• Phase 3: November 19, 2018 for lottery and gaming registrants and January 14, 2019 for cannabis applicants.

As of January 2019, the online submission rate for liquor applicants was 93%. In addition, 79% of gaming application were processed online. Low risk applicants now have quicker application turnaround timelines resulting from auto-issuance and auto-renewals of licences.

In 2018-2019, 95% of Special Occasion Permits, and 41% of liquor licence renewals were issued automatically. The current auto renewal rate for gaming registrations is 60%.

iAGCO improves customer service by allowing those who do business with the AGCO to apply for and manage their licences, registrations and permits online, anytime from anywhere by accessing the iAGCO online portal. 93% of AGCO customers report satisfaction with their experience using the iAGCO portal.

The submission of regulatory notifications, liquor licence objections, cannabis public submissions, general inquiries and complaints are now conducted online through iAGCO. 

TABLE 7 – iAGCO & Service Improvements

The AGCO’s updated Complaints & Inquiries Handling Policy focuses on complaints analysis and continuous improvement to improve evidence-based decision making. Through regular performance monitoring, the AGCO’s average turnaround for addressing complaints about regulated entity compliance and licensing and registration was reduced by 44% over the previous fiscal year from 69.9 to 39.3 days. 

TABLE 8 – Operational Performance by Sector: Customer Service

The AGCO is committed to supporting the public and stakeholders through effective front-line customer service support.

The AGCO continued its commitment to improving the customer experience, with the launch of call-monitoring technology to monitor and improve the quality of customer calls. 

Stakeholder engagement is a key component of the delivery of AGCO priority projects and decision-making. The AGCO shares information and educates stakeholders to ensure overall understanding of regulatory requirements and improve regulatory outcomes and compliance. This engagement supports the AGCO’s compliance-focused and risk-based regulatory approach with increased service quality and collaboration.

Stakeholder engagement, education, and training activities include hosting of webinars and national/international delegations, consultations and industry stakeholder information sessions as well as participation in industry related forums and conferences and facilitation of working groups.

TABLE 9 – Quarterly Strategic Engagement Activities

In addition to targeted industry outreach, the AGCO developed a comprehensive municipal engagement strategy to engage in a focused and coordinated manner with municipalities on its regulatory frameworks for liquor, cannabis and charitable gaming. The strategy included a municipal webinar series aimed at strengthening the AGCO’s relationship with municipalities by engaging on key AGCO regulatory activity topics and issues to address the interests of municipalities. Webinar topics ranged from explaining the role of the AGCO to education surrounding the charitable gaming regulatory framework and the newly regulated cannabis industry. Overall, there were over 900 municipal registrations for the four municipal webinars with an average participant satisfaction rate of 94%.

The 2018-2019 racing season also saw the first full year of implementation of two key reforms to the review of the Rules of Racing that arose out of the industry-wide “Moving Ahead: Horse Racing Regulation in Ontario” working group activities that took place in 2017:

• Measures to streamline the Equine Drug Program process, including changes to penalty guidelines so that they better reflect the severity of equine drug violations and better protect equine athletes. Preliminary results indicate that 94% of positive tests were resolved through a settlement process, and therefore without appeal to the Horse Racing Appeal Panel, compared to 31% in FY 2016/17; 17 of 18 positive tests from April 21 to Dec 31, 2018 were settled
• Standards-based rules related to temperature, including requirements for race cancellation and other measures intended to ensure the well-being of horses and people who may be impacted by extreme temperature. Performance measures related to goals such as enhanced race horse welfare and increased transparency regarding race cancellations were designed, and data collection is underway. 

During 2018-2019, the AGCO continued its engagement with industry stakeholders as it worked toward implementation of other key reforms explored as part of AGCO’s review of the Rules of Racing. This included:

• Receiving input from industry associations, racetrack management, veterinarians and other stakeholders to help inform new standards-based rules requiring that horses in Ontario are free of medications, as well as new provisions concerning the invalidating of claims in instances where a horse dies or is euthanized on the racetrack. Feedback received has informed the implementation and ongoing evaluation of these changes
• Insights from jockeys, racetrack management and medical professionals contributed to the design of a Concussion Protocol Pilot that is to be held at thoroughbred racetracks for the duration of the 2019 racing season. This protocol is intended to safeguard jockeys and race horses, and raise awareness and understanding of concussions and associated health risks.