Well, like the doctor mentioned, it's a provincial undertaking, so you have your provincial regulatory bodies for the most part—although there are some federal cases as well—and it generally starts with a provincial enforcement body. It could be a veterinarian who notices something, or neighbours maybe, who notice that something isn't right here.
That's when a provincial enforcement body is generally contacted and starts to look into it. A lot of them will be social cases where maybe somebody was incapacitated, but some of them are bad stories. That's often when animals will be removed or taken custody of, and then it might proceed to charges being pressed and fines.
Some things will be a criminal matter and charged federally. It really is case by case, but that step of somebody finding out and reporting it and it then it being investigated from there is a common denominator. Then the code is referred to. They say, well, what was going on is this, whereas what is considered acceptable practice is this, and they compare the situation with the codes of practice.