EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Six years after it allowed the practice, Ontario will ban speed cameras, making good on Premier Doug Ford’s promise to end what he calls a “cash grab” by municipalities.
In October, when the house returns, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives will introduce legislation that prevents cities and towns from operating automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras, he said.
Instead, the government will create a new fund for other traffic-calming measures like speed bumps, roundabouts, raised crosswalks, curb extensions and signage. Ford did not say how much money will be available in that fund.
Municipalities with speed cameras in school zones will have to install “large new signs” by mid-November, “with permanent, large signs with flashing lights to be in place by September 2026,” the government said in a news release.
The premier made a series of false claims in his announcement on Thursday.
Ford said the number of tickets issued by one Toronto speed camera illustrates how the programs don’t work.
He said that while locals who know where the cameras are may slow down, other drivers just passing through do not.
"It's not slowing people down. When you're issuing 65,000 tickets in three months, that's not slowing people down," he said.
The cameras cut speeding by 45 per cent in Toronto school zones, according to a July study from Toronto Metropolitan University and SickKids Hospital.
Brampton has reduced average speeds by 9 km/h in speed camera locations, with five areas seeing slowdowns greater than 20 km/h, according to a Sept. 4 staff report.
Average speeds in Mississauga declined by 9 km/h across the city when speed cameras were installed, staff said this week.
Mayor Carolyn Parrish said drivers slowed down by an average of 14 km/h in the city’s camera zones.
Waterloo Region has seen average school zone speeds drop by 15 km/h.
Staff in Essa Township found an average 29 per cent speed reduction in camera locations.
Ford also said cities were using the cameras as a cash cow.
“But do you know what I find ironic? The mayors I've asked, ‘The money you've collected, how much have you put into road safety? How much have you put into calming traffic?’ Not one dollar has gone into that,” he said.
“Where's the money? It's going into the general coffers. That's what this is all about, folks. This is all about money. This is all about a cash grab off taxpayers and nothing more, nothing less.”
If Ford were looking for an example of a city that funds traffic calming measures through speed camera fines, he wouldn’t have had to look far.
Mississauga’s mayor said in a statement that money from the fines is spent on “traffic calming and safety measures such as flashing signs close to school sites, bollards, educational pamphlets, road calming measures, etc.”
“None of the money goes into general revenue,” she said.
Other cities that spend revenue on road safety measures include Guelph (which keeps just 15.6 per cent of fine revenue after paying the company that operates the cameras), Innisfil, Sudbury, Shelburne and Severn.
Burlington’s plan was the same, said Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, whose city had planned to install its first six speed cameras in the fall.
Meed Ward said the government should change the program to make it fairer instead of scrapping it altogether.
It could legislate that drivers can only be fined for going a certain amount over the speed limit, and that fines collected can only be spent on traffic-calming measures, she said.
"If the government’s own ASE regulation doesn’t stand up to its own criticism, the easy fix is to change the regulation," Geoff Wilkinson, executive director of the Ontario Traffic Council, said in a statement, calling speed cameras "an evidence-based, potentially life-saving solution to speeding."
Ford said he wasn’t interested in tweaking the program “because enough is enough.”
“Why don't we be proactive instead of reactive? Why do we have to charge people?” he said.
“The worst part,” Ford said, “is people who are issued a ticket don't know how to fight (the tickets) or make their case.”
"When you get a ticket, usually you can go to court and fight the ticket. In this scenario, you can't fight the tickets. You just have to pay it," he said on Monday.
By law, information on how to appeal infractions caught by cameras must be on the tickets themselves.
Ford said he didn’t have any qualms about going against the wishes of SickKids and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.
“Not at all,” he said, reiterating his stance that the cameras don’t slow people down.
Opposition parties said the ban will make school zones more dangerous.
“Speed cameras are first and foremost about safe schools. They’re about protecting children and making sure the streets they walk on are safe,” Liberal education critic John Fraser said in a statement. “Leadership means doing the right thing, not the popular thing. Doug Ford is failing that test.”
The NDP’s solicitor general critic, Jennie Stevens, said the news goes against experts and is a “distraction” from the “jobs disaster” that has resulted in 800,000 unemployed Ontarians.
—With files from Steve Cornwell