Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he wants towns and cities using automatic speed cameras to scrap them entirely, threatening he will “help them get rid of them very shortly” if they don’t comply.
Speaking after an event in downtown Toronto on Tuesday morning, Ford said cameras that automatically clock speeding vehicles and send tickets to the address on their licence are nothing more than an attempt to make money.
“It’s just a tax grab, and they should take out those cameras, all of them,” the premier said. “If you want to slow down traffic in school, you put the big, huge signs, big flashing lights, crossing area, people will slow down. This is nothing but a tax grab.”
His comments came after one such camera, beside High Park, was vandalized and chopped down. The camera has been repeatedly vandalized and felled, with the first incident of vandalism reported in November 2024.
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That particular camera was installed on Parkside Drive in Toronto after a fatal crash in 2021 that claimed the lives of two people.
Ford said he didn’t think its presence would deter speeding or increase safety on the roads.
“I’m all about public safety, I’m against taxing the death out of people,” he said. “What? Five kilometres over? I guess everyone’s breaking the law every day. Get rid of the speed cameras, or I’m going to do it for them.”
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Faraz Gholizadeh, co-chair of the community group Safe Parkside, said he was dismayed to hear the premier describe the cameras as about money, not safety.
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“It’s unfortunate that the term ‘tax grab’ is being used for speed cameras that are located near schools and parks, or in other words, in areas where there are high numbers of children,” he wrote in a statement sent to Global News.
“If we can’t enforce speed limits near schools and parks, then where can we enforce speed limits? Are the people of Ontario expected to simply accept that children be put risk of injury or death because so many motorists can’t seem to regulate their speed? Speed kills and speed cameras reduce speeding.”
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow echoed the comments.
“The camera is there to protect our most vulnerable, whether they’re children going to school, or seniors going shopping or going to see a doctor,” she said on Tuesday.
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“They are protecting our citizens.”
The city issued about $40 million in fines from automated speed cameras in 2024 and so far this year the total is already up over $45 million, a spokesperson said in a statement.
Toronto first asked for speed cameras back in 2016 and a year later, then-premier Kathleen Wynne made changes to the Highway Traffic Act to allow for automated speed camera use in school and community zones.
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Toronto has 150 automated speed cameras, Mayor Olivia Chow said, and they are aimed at keeping communities safe.
Cars zoom past a vandalized traffic speed camera beside High Park in Toronto on Thursday August 24, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
The Ministry of Transportation did not immediately respond to a question asking if the government planned to table legislative changes to force cities to remove speed cameras.
Amendments made to the Highway Traffic Act earlier this year through the budget gave Queen’s Park more power to regulate automatic speed cameras and how cities operate them.
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“I’m dead against this photo radar that they have,” Ford added on Tuesday.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles called Ford’s comments “idiotic” and said the cameras were important to boost safety.
“We need safer roads — a lot of these speed cameras are in front of the schools we’ve just been talking about,” she said.
“That is not a responsible approach to this issue. We have a premier who is putting booze in gas stations, and now he wants to tear down our speed cameras.”
— with a file from Global News’ Aaron D’Andrea and The Canadian Press
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