The AGCO provides services to a wide group of licensees, registrants and authorization holders. The following tables outline AGCO’s currently active licensees, registrants and authorization holders as of March 2022. It also shows the information from the previous fiscal year.

Please note that due to the name changes impacting several licence, registration and authorization types, some of which resulted in re-categorization, there is some variance from the numbers reported in the 2020–2021 Annual Report.

Table 2—AGCO licensees and registrants

Table 3—Total number of liquor licences

Note:

• The implementation of the LLCA in November 2021 resulted in adjustments to certain licence categories.
• Grocery Store Licences, Onsite and Offsite Retail Store Endorsements, and Other Endorsements are now included in this table.
• There is a variance between numbers reported in this table for 2020–21 Liquor Sales Licensed Establishments and Manufacturers (By-the-Glass Included) and what was reported in the 2020–2021 Annual Report as a result of changes to licence categories.

 

Table 4—Total number of gaming registrations

Note:

• igaming is a new line of business to be launched in April 2022, therefore there are no active registrations for that sector in 2020–21.
• The “AGCO Subsidiary” indicated in the table above is the registration for the Lottery Subsidiary iGaming Ontario.

Table 5—Total number of cannabis licences and authorizations

The Licensing and Registration Branch (L&R) of the AGCO’s Operations Division is responsible for reviewing and processing applications for licences, permits, authorizations and registrations for the sectors regulated by the AGCO. Eligibility Officers, Senior Eligibility Officers and Managers review applications and supporting materials to assess an applicant’s eligibility to hold a particular licence, permit, authorization or registration. When necessary, they enlist the services of additional AGCO departments to facilitate further review or investigation of an application, such as the Regulatory Compliance Branch (RCB), the OPP Investigation and Enforcement Bureau (IEB), and the Audit and Financial Investigations Branch (AFI).

Additionally, L&R reviews and processes applications regarding renewing all licences, permits, authorizations, registrations and amendment applications received to amend or update information pertaining to an establishment or licensee.

As part of the AGCO’s risk-based licensing approach, L&R considers various factors in its review. These factors include an applicant’s type of business, location, compliance history and experience. Some establishments pose a greater risk to public safety, public interest and/or non-compliance with the law. Additionally, when reviewing an application, past conduct, financial responsibility, experience/training and honesty/integrity of an applicant are considered. If the Registrar believes that the issuance of a licence or registration is not in the public interest, the Registrar may issue a Notice of Proposal (NOP) to review or refuse to the applicant or licensee, who may request a hearing on the NOP before the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT).

During this assessment, L&R uses AGCO Board–approved criteria to assess the risk(s) posed to public safety and public interest and non-compliance with the law. All potential risks and concerns are reviewed to determine if the licence, permit, authorization or registration should

have a Level I, Level II or Level III risk designation or no designation at all. A risk designation ensures the AGCO focuses the appropriate resources towards the licensee and the establishment to ensure compliance is always maintained. If the Registrar believes that a licensee may require additional assistance or support to remain compliant with the applicable acts and/or the Registrar’s Standards, additional conditions may be attached to their licence, permit, authorization or registration. L&R performs risk-based assessments during the lifetime of all licences, permits, authorizations and registrations to ensure potential risks posed by a licensee or establishment are considered and evaluated.

The following tables outline the number of licences and registrations issued during the fiscal year. It is important to note that the following tables represent applications that have been approved and issued, not all applications submitted. In addition to this, some of the variance is due to the fact that tables now also show renewal and amended licences and registrations.

Table 7—Liquor licences issued, renewed and amended

Table 8—Gaming registrations issued, renewed and amended

Note: The “AGCO Subsidiary” indicated in the table above is the registration for the Lottery Subsidiary iGaming Ontario.

Table 9—Charitable lottery licences issued, renewed and amended

Note:

• Due to this sector transitioning to iAGCO in October 2021, the numbers reported for 2020–21 vary from the 2020–21 annual report.
• The Social Event Gaming Licence was launched in October 2021; there are no numbers to report for the 2020–2021 fiscal year.
• The Special Occasion Gaming Licence was launched in October 2020, resulting in low numbers issued.
• The Social Gaming Licence is not issued under the charitable component of the Criminal Code. All wagers under this licence are paid out to winners and this is not a charitable fundraising opportunity.

The AGCO inspects, monitors and educates to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The AGCO’s compliance approach is risk-based and outcome-focused.

• Risk-based refers to the regulatory risks underlying the Standards, regulations, laws and requirements. A risk-based compliance approach focuses the greatest resources on mitigating the highest risk areas.
• Outcome-focused means emphasizing the results that regulated sectors are meant to achieve, rather than prescriptive activities that must be carried out.

The compliance activities emphasize monitoring through a series of inspection activities, including unannounced inspections, responding to police reports and evaluating regulatory submissions and public complaints. The AGCO also conducts ongoing regulatory assurance activities, including regular audits, compliance reviews and mystery shopper visits.

In the horse racing sector, the AGCO ensures compliance with the Rules of Racing by reviewing alleged rule infractions and having Race Officials present to officiate races. The AGCO supports the health and welfare of horses and horse racing participants by monitoring and enforcing the Equine Medication and Drug Control Program and ensuring an official veterinarian is in attendance to supervise live racing.

 

Partnerships

To support a coordinated approach to compliance activities, the AGCO’s compliance approach places significant emphasis on working with local community partners, including police, fire services, municipal by-law and public health units. In the liquor sector, this work also includes administering the Police Report & Last Drink Programs in partnership with the police.

 

Mystery Shopper Program

The use of mystery shoppers in the grocery sector continues to be an effective tool to aid in evaluating how grocery stores are performing in preventing youth access to alcohol. Throughout 2022–2023, the AGCO will expand its Mystery Shopper Program to cover all liquor licensees operating within the province.

To adequately assess the sector’s ability to prevent youth access to cannabis products, the AGCO continues to use its Mystery Shopper Program to identify retailers who present an increased risk of permitting youth access. During this fiscal year, the AGCO enhanced the Mystery Shopper Program to support enhanced oversight of cannabis retailers operating close to high schools.

 

Educational activities

The AGCO proactively provides education to all sectors to increase their understanding of regulatory obligations and improve overall compliance. All new licensees or authorization holders in the liquor and cannabis sectors receive this education. In addition, any licensee or authorization holder can take advantage of these opportunities at any time throughout the life cycle of their licence.

Please note that all information in the following tables has been adjusted to align with the new methodology of categorizing inspections that was implemented in fiscal year 2021–2022.The category “miscellaneous compliance activity” includes but is not limited to compliance activity driven by intelligence or investigation activity, Mystery Shopper Program or criminal charges.

Table 13—Compliance Services inspections—Alcohol

Note: There is a variance between numbers reported in this table for 2020–21 violations cited and serious violations escalated for further review and what was reported in the 2020–2021 Annual Report as a result of changes to data categories.

Table 14—Compliance Services inspections—Lottery retailers

Table 15—Compliance Services inspections—Raffles

The AGCO’s Legal Services Division provides legal advice on licensee and registrant compliance within the regulatory framework and represents the Registrar at hearings of appeals before the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT), the Horse Racing Appeal Panel (HRAP) and the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal.

Table 21—Notices of Proposal (NOPs) and Orders of Monetary Penalty (OMPs)—Alcohol

Table 22—Alcohol-related settlements without a hearing

Modernization, transformation and integration

The 2021–2022 year saw the implementation of several important initiatives to drive efficiency. The Investigation and Enforcement Bureau (IEB) implemented the Management Inspection Process to ensure processes are incorporated into everyday operations, providing accountability, consistency and reliability.

Pre-screening applicants during the eligibility process is key to supporting the honesty and integrity of licensees, registrants and authorization holders. To support this process, the IEB implemented the Enhanced Cannabis Application Pre-Screening Interview process for Retail Operator and Retail Manager licences to allow for immediate flagging of any criminal associations. In 2021, enhanced Cannabis Application Pre-Screening Interviews identified 80 applicants as problematic or with areas of risk.

In the igaming sector, the IEB implemented Eligibility and Major Investigations pre-screening igaming CEO interview questions to identify any possible risks associated with the AGCO registration of igaming companies.

Anti–money laundering

Anti–money laundering (AML) continues to be a key focus for the IEB. In 2021–2022, the IEB implemented a new enhanced IEB AML investigative strategy that focused Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) resources to attend the casino floor any time they are called for a suspicious cash transaction when the patron is present at the casino. This allows the IEB members to engage and question the patron regarding the source of funds and determine investigative action.

Partnerships are key to the success of our AML programs. This year, the IEB developed and implemented a video to raise awareness of AML investigative analytic processes among stakeholders, including the OLG, the OPP, the AGCO and FINTRAC. These partnerships were further supported by introducing the IEB AML Coordination Model, where dedicated OPP, OLG and AGCO analysts worked closely to query and analyze their respective agency’s data sets to openly share and discuss information and identify individuals and activities that pose AML risks. The IEB also developed and implemented a new joint AML Investigative Process with the OPP

Provincial Asset Forfeiture Unit for identified High Priority Individuals that warrant an AML investigation that will utilize resources effectively.

A data-driven mindset is key to the IEB’s AML approach. An analytical program/dashboard tool has been developed and implemented to help identify and initiate investigations of individuals who pose risks of engaging in money laundering activities. The IEB has reduced a significant number of manual processes by automating the intake of all suspicious transaction reports (STRs) generated at Ontario gaming sites into the established IEB AML analytical program/dashboard tool. This allows the IEB to allocate resources to focus on high-risk gaming areas, and ground decisions and actions against high-priority individuals to determine if criminal investigations and/or regulatory recommendations are warranted.

To support data collection and drive these analytical insights in 2021–2022, the IEB launched a newly developed OPP Report Management System (RMS) STR investigative report and training video. The new report’s drop-down menus and entry fields walk the investigator through the investigation to ensure that nothing is omitted. This data is also trackable, assisting with future analysis of the information collected in the database and statistic collection. Implementing an enhanced IEB Harm Reduction Strategy and training video ensures consistency and that patrons attending casinos in violation of exclusion orders receive addiction assistance when required.

The IEB Intelligence Unit initiated a collaboration between the Biker Enforcement Unit and the RMS Unit to create a streamlined way to search, identify and compare those listed in the Outlaw Motorcycle Gaming databases to those within the AGCO’s regulatory database. This search resulted in over one thousand outlaw motorcycle gaming members’ names that can be compared to all regulated sectors.

Leadership and stewardship

The IEB Anti–Human Trafficking (AHT) Working Group collaborated with the OPP Anti–Human Trafficking Unit, Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario and municipal partners in order to proactively focus on AHT activities. The working group created a 2021 list of AHT police contacts from police jurisdictions across Ontario that house casinos and/or racetracks. The development of this initiative allowed investigators to quickly mobilize a multi-jurisdictional response to locate a wanted material HT witness from Quebec.

The IEB also provided support and subject matter expertise/follow-up to assist GTA municipal police counterparts on illegal gaming venues.

The Cannabis Intelligence Sharing Working Group involving the IEB/AGCO/ Provincial Joint Forces Cannabis Enforcement Team /OCS was implemented to share critical intelligence information, increase linkages to organized crime groups and enhance relationships. In addition, the Legal Cannabis Intelligence Working Group Due Diligence Investigators Network (DDIN) was implemented. The DDIN engaged cannabis regulators across Canada to share critical intelligence and information strategies from involved stakeholders and share linkages to organized crime connections and affiliations.