Ontario Government:1)(Updated) Doug Ford muses about using speed cameras, which he’s set to ban, for surveillance; 2) (Update) Ontario plans to ban speed cameras; Ford frames move as affordability measure; 3) (Updated) Innisfil mayor among those who call on Ford to cover municipalities’ speed camera cancellation costs

1)(Updated) Doug Ford muses about using speed cameras, which he’s set to ban, for surveillance

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones, September 29, 2025

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is set to soon ban speed cameras across the province, but is now musing about “cameras on crime” instead to target stolen cars and home invasion suspects.

Ford has announced his government will introduce legislation next month to prohibit the use of speed cameras across the province.

Various regions that use the cameras, as well as a study by the Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Metropolitan University, have data showing they reduce speeding but Ford disagrees, calling the cameras a “cash grab” for municipalities.

He says he has no problem with red light cameras because “racing through a red light” causes serious accidents.

Speaking Monday at an unrelated press conference in Hamilton — alongside Mayor Andrea Horwath, who supports the use of speed cameras — Ford used a question about those cameras to pivot to talking about crime.

“I was asking the mayor about crime as well, because I want to start introducing cameras on crime, if approved by residents,” Ford said.

“Certain areas around Ontario are just getting hammered, York Region, certain parts of Etobicoke, Peel Region, and up in Halton as well, Durham, so we’re going to be working on that. And I’m wondering if we can use those cameras to identify stolen cars as well.”

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said neither she nor anyone else has any idea of what Ford is talking about.

“I think he’s throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what’s going to stick, and it’s all fallen down everybody’s heads,” she said.

She suggested Ford continually throws out new ideas off the top of his head in order to distract from talking about real issues.

York Regional Police recently announced an expansion of their CCTV systems to help detect stolen licence plates.

Ford said the cameras he has in mind would only be used in willing communities.

“If you don’t want cameras for security reasons — I know a lot of people have home cameras as well — then we won’t put it in,” he said. 

“We’ll only put those cameras in if the city or the town wants it in, and then the community has to give a green light as well. But I think they’re superb.”

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario is calling on Ford to leave decisions on speed cameras up to individual cities and towns, saying they are concerned about “continued provincial overreach.”

“This should be a local decision,” the association wrote on its website. “Our goal is to advocate for working with the province to improve — not ban — the (speed camera) program.”

2) (Update) Ontario plans to ban speed cameras; Ford frames move as affordability measure

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Liam Casey and Allison Jones, September 25, 2025

Ontario will introduce legislation next month to ban the use of speed cameras across the province, Premier Doug Ford announced Thursday, framing it as an affordability measure.

Ford has been bemoaning the cameras in recent weeks as a “cash grab,” suggesting they don’t work to slow traffic and are only used by some municipalities to generate revenue.

“Governments need to be putting more money back into people’s pockets to help make their lives more affordable,” Ford said Thursday at the announcement in Vaughan, Ont.

“But unfortunately, too many governments are doing the opposite. They’re increasing taxes and taking more money out of people’s pockets. Over the last few years, we’ve seen municipalities across the province use municipal speed cameras as nothing more than a cash grab.”

Toronto 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.

There are 37 municipalities across Ontario that have speed cameras, Ford said.

At the news conference, he referenced a decision by Barrie City Council at its meeting on Wednesday to remove speed cameras https://barrie360.com/barrie-red-light-runners by the end of the year.

The premier’s push against speed cameras comes a few weeks after 17 automated speed cameras were cut down in Toronto over two days, and the city’s mayor slammed the upcoming ban as wrong-headed.

“It signals to people that the provincial government is OK with speeding,” Olivia Chow said Thursday. “It will mean our roads are less safe.”

Ford believes traffic can be slowed down through alternate measures such as large signs with flashing lights, which the province will require municipalities that currently have cameras to use in school zones.

“Why do we have to charge people?” Ford said. “Why don’t we actually slow them down … rather than let them speed through a speed camera?”

Premier Doug Ford speaks about roadway speed cameras at the Vaughan Joint Operations Centre in Vaughan, Ontario on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jon Blacker

Recent studies and municipal data, however, show that the cameras do reduce speeding.

A study from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Metropolitan University found the cameras reduced speeding by 45 per cent in Toronto.

A staff report earlier this month from Brampton said the city saw an average speed reduction of more than nine kilometres per hour across speed camera locations. Mississauga reported similar results. Five camera locations in Brampton saw reductions of more than 20 kilometres per hour, the staff report said.

Ford said the fact that tickets continue to be issued, including 65,000 from a single camera in Toronto, is evidence they don’t work.

“Speed cameras don’t slow people down, or they’d have zero tickets if they slowed them down,” the premier said. “Instead, we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of tickets. That’s the proof in the pudding, right there.”

Liberal transportation critic Andrea Hazell said rules around speed cameras could be improved to “maximize fairness,” but scrapping them altogether is reckless.

“We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater just because the premier thinks it will boost him in the polls,” Hazell wrote in a statement.

“It is irresponsible to make road safety policy without thoughtful and evidence-based consideration, and that is exactly what Premier Ford is doing.”

The government said municipalities will also be encouraged to use speed bumps, raised crosswalks and roundabouts. Ford said there would be a new fund to help offset some of those costs, but couldn’t provide an amount for it Thursday.

Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca said his municipality’s recent decision to end its speed camera program came after stories of people struggling with the tickets.

“People on fixed incomes, pensioners heading home (from) bingo on a Friday night at 11 o’clock, people who’d never gotten a speeding ticket in their entire driving lives being dinged with not one, not two, but in some cases, six, seven, eight tickets,” he said.

“The people of this city, and I suspect the people of Ontario, want us to focus on what I will call the real criminals.”

The Police Association of Ontario spoke in favour of the premier’s move, but the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police has said the cameras are effective in reducing speeding and free up police resources to focus on other public safety priorities.

Alberta earlier this year ended photo radar on numbered provincial highways, but left cameras in place in school zones, playground zones and construction sites.

3) (Updated) Innisfil mayor among those who call on Ford to cover municipalities’ speed camera cancellation costs

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones, October 3, 2025

Several Ontario municipalities are pushing back on Premier Doug Ford’s planned speed camera ban, urging him to tweak the program instead of outright cancelling it — but if he forges ahead, they say the province should foot the bill.

Ford has announced that his government will introduce legislation this month to prohibit the use of speed cameras across the province.

The premier calls the cameras a “cash grab” and has criticized several parameters of the program his government put in place. A letter this week to Ford and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria from 22 mayors, including Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin, calls on the government to make a few simple changes to the program rather than scrapping it entirely.

“A total ban on (automated speed enforcement) would reverse years of progress on safety in school zones,” write the mayors, including several who are otherwise supportive of the Ford government.

“It would place more pressure on police, increase enforcement costs, and most critically, endanger lives.”

However, if the province intends on banning all of those cameras, even ones in school zones, it should fully reimburse municipalities for lost revenues that were being used for traffic calming, staff severance costs and increases in municipal policing costs, the mayors write.

Staff in several municipalities are in the process of calculating those costs and plan to send that bill to the province.

The government has said municipalities will be encouraged to instead use speed bumps, raised crosswalks and roundabouts to slow traffic. Ford said there would be a new fund to help offset some of those costs but couldn’t provide an amount for it. The premier’s office says the province “will look to indemnify municipalities from contractual obligations” related to the cancelled cameras.

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, one of the top signatories to the letter, said her city has already spent several hundred thousand dollars for six speed cameras that were about to be installed. Since the cameras have not yet had a chance to issue fines, the city has not recouped any of its costs.

It also has not had a chance to put any fine revenue toward other traffic safety measures, as planned, so now all taxpayers will have to pay for that instead of the speeders, she said.

“I hope that reason and evidence and ultimately public safety…prevails,” Meed Ward said in an interview.

“Our letter is really our plea. It’s an SOS to the premier. A ‘save our schoolkids.’ When you get hit by a car at 30 (kilometres per hour) you have a chance of surviving that. When the speeds go to 40 or 50, your chances of surviving that impact drop dramatically.”

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The premier has criticized some cities for putting speed cameras outside school zones. So change the rules to limit the cameras to school zones, the mayors suggest.

The premier has said some drivers get dinged for going “a few” kilometres per hour over the limit. So dictate a higher threshold, the mayors suggest.

Ford maintains that the cameras don’t work, despite a large amount of evidence to the contrary.

The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police says the cameras work and free up police to focus on other public safety priorities. A July study from the Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Metropolitan University found the cameras reduced speeding by 45 per cent in Toronto.

Data show that in Brampton and Mississauga, traffic slowed down nine kilometres per hour, on average, across their camera locations. Five locations in Brampton saw reductions of more than 20 kilometres per hour. Preliminary data in Newmarket show an average decrease of 10 kilometres per hour. Niagara Region saw average speed reductions of seven kilometres per hour.

In Vaughan, which recently decided to end its short-lived speed camera program, staff reported that driving speeds were reduced at all 10 camera locations, including one that saw speeds drop by an average of 23 kilometres per hour.

Ford believes traffic can be slowed down through alternate measures such as large signs with flashing lights, which the province will require in place of cameras currently in use in school zones.

A Vaughan staff report from before the city ended its camera program shows they contemplated a number of measures to enhance public awareness and warn drivers of speed camera locations, including putting flashing lights on the “municipal speed camera in use” signs, but they said that was not allowed by the province.

Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said at a recent York regional council meeting that municipalities have tried many of the other tools cited by the premier.

“Please don’t talk to me about flashing signs and speed humps,” he said.

“We’ve been there and done that for decades. We know what truly works, what truly is effective and that’s speed cameras…We’re going to lose the greatest municipal safety tool we’ve ever had, and that’s a shame.”

Barrie City Council, at its meeting on September 24, directed staff to begin phasing out the Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) program. This is supposed to happen at the end of the year.

Until then, existing cameras will remain in operation

The city has said that all funds from the ASE program are used to fund safety and traffic calming initiatives.

At the same meeting, council gave the green light to consider red-light cameras, which capture images of vehicles entering an intersection after the traffic signal has turned red. Staff will report back to city council before a red light camera is implemented.

In 2016, the city studied three busy intersections and found that there were about three red light infractions per day at those intersections.

Recent traffic data management shows infractions have increased.

“Mapleview Drive West going southbound in the southbound ramp, we’re looking at a 72-hour period of 135 (red-light infractions). That ended up being like five per hour, versus what we used to see, three per day. The northbound ramp is about four per hour, and Bayfield and Livingstone is about seven per hour. The preliminary data that we have coming in is showing much higher rates,” Barrie’s director of development services, Michaelle Banfield, revealed to councillors at their September 24 meeting.

Files from Barrie 360