Ontario plans to ban speed cameras; Ford frames move as affordability measure

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.

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?”

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.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2025.