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An Edmonton councillor is putting forward a motion to tackle parking ban non-compliance after a frustrating year of enforcement woes.
Ward Dene Coun. Aaron Paquette wants city administration to provide a strategic plan for parking enforcement. His motion follows a city report that most cars stayed on the streets this winter, despite residential parking bans for snow clearing.
“One thing that I heard loud and clear during the winter was the frustration from folks. They will move their cars so that the snow plows will go through and then a few of their neighbours just won’t even bother,” he told CBC News Thursday.
“If we had a little more enforcement, you’d probably have a whole lot more people following the parking ban, and that way we’d get safer streets.”
In a statement to CBC News, Keith Scott, the director of complaints and investigations for the city’s community standards branch, said parking enforcement officers issued 112,613 tickets in 2025, and 30,156 tickets as of April 1 of this year.
Edmonton has up to 55 contracted parking officers, with about 30 officers enforcing parking rules daily, Scott said.
Paquette doesn’t think this is enough, noting that the number of enforcement officers has not grown proportionately to Edmonton’s growth.
“The beautiful thing about parking is that it is everywhere all the time,” he said. “The fact that we’re not actually able to adequately deal with those spikes in a responsive and full manner is concerning.”
Earlier this year, the city hired additional parking enforcement officers to ticket residents who didn’t move their vehicles during a residential parking ban.
At the time, Mayor Andrew Knack told CBC News this move was “necessary,” citing accessibility and safety issues.
Paquette told CBC News Wednesday a lack of enforcement can allow behaviour “contrary to what you want to see in your neighbourhood.”
“Essentially your bylaws are a social agreement that you’re going to obey the rules, but when you don’t have enforcement and people feel that there’s no consequences, sometimes that social contract starts to break apart,” he said.
Parking infringements have also put a strain on towing lots in Edmonton, said Paquette.
Paquette said he wants city council to consider opening more lots for towed vehicles. The city has stopped towing cars because the Police Seized Vehicle Impound Lot — which holds both abandoned vehicles and cars towed by enforcement officers — has reached capacity.
In 2025, 358 vehicles were towed by the city due to parking regulation non-compliance, said Scott. He said no cars have been towed in 2026 due to space concerns.
As for the motion being tabled Wednesday at a city council meeting, Paquette said he doesn’t anticipate pushback from other council members.
“It’s very clearly a need that we have.”