By Angie Sullivan
The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has given Ontario municipalities until November 14 to decommission their automated speed enforcement cameras (ASE), after a bill banning their use was passed last week.
There are five municipal speed cameras in Georgina, and they will remain active until Nov. 14. Any ticket issued up to midnight on Nov. 13 is valid and must be paid.
Premier Doug Ford’s omnibus bill, the Building a More Competitive Economy Act, which included a ban on speed cameras, received royal assent (the final step in the legislative process allowing a bill to become law) on Nov. 3.
Ford posted on X, “Municipal speed cameras are nothing but a cash grab. We can keep our streets safe without making life more expensive for hardworking taxpayers.”
The Town of Georgina has an ASE camera in each ward on the following streets: Lowndes Avenue, Wexford Drive, Church Street, Maple Avenue and Station Road. The program went live on April 10, 2025 as part of its Safe Streets Monitoring Program.
In a report presented to the Georgina Town Council at the beginning of October, the ASE program demonstrated strong early success, including a 38 per cent reduction in top speeders (averaging a drop of 14.2 km/h) and a 61 per cent reduction in repeat offenders. Compliance with posted speed limits improved by an average of 29 per cent across all sites, with the location at Wexford Drive showing the highest gain at 40 per cent.
“I just don’t agree with removing them entirely,” Mayor Margaret Quirk said during the council meeting on Nov. 5. “At the very least, they should be kept in school zones. I can’t see people being happy that there’s no longer that ability to have those cameras in a school zone.”
Other safety calming measures in the region include pavement marking, speed humps, traffic bollards and 11 digital radar boards, which show drivers their speed in designated community safety zones.
Michael Vos, director of operations and infrastructure for the Town of Georgina, said at the same meeting, “ASE is one of several options in our traffic-calming toolkit. Speed humps or bumps are used in low-speed, low-volume local roads, while ASE was more effective on higher-volume, multi-lane roads. Each roadway requires a different approach.”
Vos confirmed that operating the cameras involved daily rental fees, data connection costs, and infrastructure expenses.
“We have charges with our camera vendor for the daily rental and the data connection,” he said. “There are also capital costs for infrastructure specific to electrical connections, most of which are done through our streetlight poles. Those can remain in place even if the cameras are removed.”
According to the Town of Georgina, vandalism accounted for approximately 30 inactive camera-days. Incidents ranged from spray-painting and misaligning camera heads to tampering with wires and connections. While the costs of vandalism were covered under the supplier contract, the Town lost valuable operational days.
As the province moves forward with its ban, Vos said, “There will be some radar traffic boxes that are going up this week before the cameras are removed so we can track post camera installation data and report back on what that looks like in the next traffic report.”
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