“The purpose of this Bill is to introduce a Standard Scale for fines not exceeding $100,000. This will enable the maximum amount of these fines to be increased from time to time by a single order of the Governor in Council in order to reflect the effect of inflation.

At present the process of increasing the fines in our legislation is complicated, time-consuming and wasteful of resources, since the increases are done on a fine by fine basis. Each provision that needs to be revised has to be identified; the date of the last adjustment to the fine has to be ascertained; the extent of inflation since that date has to be determined; and an appropriate increase in the fine decided upon. A legislative instrument specifying the amendment to that particular fine then has to be prepared and formally approved.

The Standard Scale proposed will greatly simplify this process. It will consist of six levels, ranging from $2,000 at level 1 to $100,000 at Level 6. All fines not exceeding $100,000 will be converted into the appropriate levels in accordance with the provisions in the Bill and the values of the levels will become the maximum amounts of these fines. These maximum amounts can be increased from time to time to reflect the effect of inflation simply by an order the Governor in Council. I must emphasize, however, that adjustment by this method is only possible to cater for inflation. Other adjustments will continue to be done by means of specific amending legislation and will have to be justified on a case-by-case basis…”