British Columbia's New Franchise Regulation: How Do B.C.'s Requirements Stack Up?

Almost a year to the day after the introduction of Bill 38 in the British Columbia legislature, the B.C. government released the regulation to its Franchises Act (the B.C. Act) on October 3, 2016. The bill was pushed through the legislature in under a month last October and, contrary to expectations, the regulation (the B.C. Regulation) was released in final form without a public consultation process. The B.C. government has set February 1, 2017, as the date on which the Act and the B.C. Regulation will come into effect. British Columbia is the sixth province in Canada to pass franchise legislation, with Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and P.E.I. being the others (together with British Columbia, the Regulated Provinces).