This bill replaces New Brunswick’s older highway advertising rules with a stand‑alone statutory framework for privately owned signs along provincial highways. It defines a 150‑metre “regulated area,” requires a permit (unless exempted) to display a privately owned sign there, and centralizes approval, enforcement and removal powers in the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.
The Act also establishes a Minister‑run tourism sign program (called “TOD signs”), updates fee and regulatory authority, and repeals the prior Highway Advertisements Regulation. The changes tighten enforcement (including higher minimum fines and continuing‑offence penalties), allow immediate removal of hazardous or distracting signs, and include transitional rules for previously issued approvals.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires a permit for each privately owned sign placed within 150 metres of a provincial highway, authorizes the Minister to condition or cancel permits, and lets the Minister remove signs that pose an immediate hazard without prior notice. It creates a government‑installed ‘TOD’ tourism sign program and repeals the prior advertising regulation.
Who It Affects
Roadside advertisers and businesses that place roadside signs, tourism operators seeking TOD signage, landowners who host signs, municipal governments that make or maintain local signage, and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (which gains regulatory and enforcement duties).
Why It Matters
The measure centralizes control over roadside signage at the provincial level, shifts many approvals from a regulatory regime into primary legislation, raises enforcement risks for unauthorized signs, and creates a new, provincially operated channel for tourism wayfinding that will compete with private advertising options.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act adds a new set of sections to the Highway Act that treats signs owned by businesses, organizations or local governments differently from official traffic control devices. It establishes the technical footprint of the scheme by defining a “regulated area” as the 150‑metre band along provincial and provincial‑municipal highways.
For non‑exempt privately owned signs, the statute requires an application to the Minister on a Ministerial form and contemplates one permit per sign; the Minister can attach conditions, set the permit term by regulation and cancel permits for non‑compliance.
The Minister receives robust operational powers. Where a sign creates an immediate hazard or distracting condition the Minister or an agent may enter land, remove the sign without notice, dispose of it as seen fit, and is protected from liability for acts done in good faith.
For signs lawfully displayed under the Act, the Minister may still serve notices requiring size, design or location changes, and must reimburse the actual costs incurred by the sign owner or landowner when they comply with such a notice. Notices served under the Act may be delivered personally or by registered mail (deemed delivered three days after mailing) and failure to comply within 30 days is a continuing offence.Enforcement tools combine administrative and judicial paths.
The Minister can pursue immediate administrative removal for hazards, issue compliance notices for other breaches, and apply to the Court of King’s Bench for orders authorizing entry, removal, or restraining relief where notices go unheeded. Cost recovery is structured: the Crown can present a statement and recover losses as a debt, and multiple liable persons are jointly and severally responsible.
The Act also doubles certain minimum fines for the specified offence category and scales penalties for continuing offences by days of non‑compliance.The TOD (tourist‑oriented directional) program lets an eligible tourism business apply to have the Minister manufacture, install and maintain tourism‑direction signs; the Minister may remove these signs if the business stops paying prescribed maintenance fees or fails to meet regulatory requirements. The bill repeals the Highway Advertisements Regulation, amends the fee regulation to add TOD subcategories, updates the New Brunswick Highway Corporation Act references, and contains transitional clauses deeming existing permits and short‑term approvals under the old regime to be permits under the new sections until they expire or are cancelled.
The Act comes into force by proclamation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
“Regulated area” is a 150‑metre band measured from the near edge of the travelled portion of a provincial or provincial‑municipal highway.
The bill requires a separate permit application to the Minister for each privately owned sign placed in a regulated area; permits may carry terms and be cancelled for non‑compliance.
The Minister or an agent may remove a privately owned sign without prior notice if it constitutes an immediate hazard or distracting condition and may enter premises to do so.
When the Minister issues a notice to a lawfully displayed sign requiring change, relocation or removal, the Minister must pay the actual costs the owner or landowner incurs in complying with that notice.
Failure to comply with a ministerial notice is a continuing offence; the Act raises minimum fines by doubling the statutory minimum and authorizes multiplying penalties for each day of continued non‑compliance.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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New terminology and alignment with Motor Vehicle Act
The bill removes the old statutory definition of “traffic control device” and borrows the Motor Vehicle Act definition. It adds specific new terms — “privately owned sign,” “regulated area,” and “TOD sign” — which set the scope of the new regime. By importing the Motor Vehicle Act meaning, the Act draws a clear legal line between official traffic devices (treated separately) and commercial or non‑traffic signage subject to the new permitting regime.
Permit per sign, application form, terms and cancellation
These sections create the permit architecture: an application on a Ministerial form is required for each privately owned sign unless a class is exempted by regulation. The Minister may issue permits subject to any terms and may prescribe permit classes and eligibility by regulation. Cancellation grounds include permit or Act breaches, failure to comply with notices within 30 days, and any regulatory circumstances. Practically, administrators must track permits at the sign level, enforce permit conditions, and update regulations to define classes, durations and exemptions.
Immediate removal for hazards, notice rules, and who pays what
The Minister may remove signs without notice if they create immediate hazards; the power includes entry onto premises and disposal of removed signs. For non‑hazard situations the Minister can serve notices to change, relocate or remove signs with 30‑day compliance windows; registered mail service is deemed effective after three days. If the Minister issues a notice in respect of a lawfully displayed sign and directs change, the Minister must reimburse the actual costs of compliance. Conversely, failure to obey a notice triggers a civil recovery process: the Crown can demand payment for loss or expense and recover it as a debt, with joint and several liability where multiple parties are responsible. The Minister and agents are shielded from liability for good‑faith acts under these powers, and no compensation is payable for relocations or removals ordered under these provisions.
Continuing offence, enhanced fines, and court enforcement options
Non‑compliance with a 30‑day notice is an offence and a continuing one for each day the breach continues. The Act raises the floor by doubling the minimum fine that would otherwise apply under the Provincial Offences Procedure Act and provides a mechanism to scale fines by multiplying the daily minimum and maximum for continuing offences. The Minister can also apply to the Court of King’s Bench for injunctions, orders authorizing entry and removal, and cost orders; judges may craft remedies to give effect to ministerial notices, which creates a civil enforcement pathway alongside provincial offences.
Minister‑installed tourism signs and fee/eligibility regime
The TOD provisions let eligible tourism businesses apply to the Minister to have directional signage manufactured, installed and maintained by government. Maintenance may be subject to an annual fee (amended into the Financial Administration Act regulation) and removal follows non‑payment or regulatory non‑compliance. The regulations will establish TOD classes (fingerboard, highway logos, ramp logos, major/secondary attraction signs), criteria, and differential rules by highway class — in short, a structured, fee‑backed program that centralizes tourism wayfinding under provincial control.
Repeal of old regulation, deemed permits, and coordination with other statutes
The bill repeals the Highway Advertisements Regulation (Reg. 97‑143) and contains transitional clauses that convert any in‑force permits or approvals under the old regulation into permits under the new sections until they expire or are cancelled. Applications started under the old regulation but not completed will be finished under the old process; however, existing unauthorized advertisements become contraventions on commencement. The Act also updates fee regulations and the New Brunswick Highway Corporation Act to align statutory authorities and categories with the new controlled‑area concept.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Motorists and road safety advocates — by reducing distracting or hazardous roadside signage the law is designed to lower visual clutter and improve sight lines along highways.
- Tourism businesses able to meet eligibility criteria — they gain access to provincially manufactured and maintained TOD signs that can offer standardized, highway‑class placement and visibility.
- Provincial government and regulators — centralizing approvals gives the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure consistent control over signage policy and a clear statutory enforcement toolkit, including fee and recovery mechanisms.
Who Bears the Cost
- Private advertisers and small businesses using roadside signage — they now need a permit per sign, face stricter removal rules, higher fines for non‑compliance and potential joint liability for cost recovery.
- Landowners who host signs — owners can be served notices and, if they fail to act, bear responsibility for removal costs and possible court orders even where they do not own the sign itself.
- Departmental operations and courts — the department must administer permit processing, inspection and removal programs and may face increased applications to the Court of King’s Bench for enforcement, while the courts will absorb contested removal and compliance proceedings.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill’s central dilemma pits highway safety and visual‑management objectives against property and commercial interests: it gives the Minister broad, discretionary powers to restrict, relocate or remove private signage to protect road users and manage aesthetics, but those powers limit private commercial expression and impose permit, cost, and penalty burdens that can fall heavily on small businesses and landowners — a trade‑off between predictable, enforceable safety rules and the economic and property rights implications of sweeping provincial control.
The Act packs strong administrative and enforcement powers into a compact statutory scheme, but that creates several operational tensions. First, the Minister’s unilateral authority to remove signs immediately for safety reasons and to dispose of them without compensation narrows remedies for owners; although immunity for good‑faith acts reduces Crown liability, it may prompt legal challenges where owners argue removal was unnecessary or arbitrary.
Second, the requirement that the Minister reimburse costs only for compliance with notices issued to lawfully displayed signs — contrasted with recovery of Crown costs from non‑complying parties — creates asymmetries that will matter in contested cases over whether a sign was lawfully placed under the new rules or deemed unlawful by transition clauses.
Implementation challenges are practical as much as legal. The department must design permit classes, eligibility criteria, fee schedules, and clear technical standards (size, design, construction) by regulation — but the Act grants wide latitude to tailor different rules by highway class and sign class, which can produce complexity and uneven application across regions.
The transition rule that deems previously unapproved advertisements to be contraventions on commencement risks immediate enforcement actions against longstanding signs, creating political and legal friction with municipalities and local businesses. Finally, the TOD program centralizes tourism signage but also establishes a government‑run competitor to private directional advertising; how fees, eligibility and placement priorities are set will determine whether TOD complements or displaces existing local advertising markets.
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