March 5, 2021

Hon. Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Transportation 5th Floor 777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario YlTA lZ8

Dear Madame Minister:
I am writint to you about two issues of continuing concern to the Town of Mono.

Traffic Act Set Fines

On June 12, 201 9 I wrote to the Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice (with a copy to your predecessor Jeff Yurek) asking that she exercise her jurisdiction to raise basic set fines for speeding offences under the Highway Traffic Act. The Chief Justice responded by letter on

July 16, 2019 indicating that her authority is usually exercised in response to Ministerial requests. On September 10, 2019 I wrote to you regarding set fines.

Put simply, basic set fines for speeding have not been increased in over 20 years while speeding has become increasingly epidemic on our local roads. As stated in my last letter, 'the amount of the fines should be increased to a level thot will provide o deterrent commensurote with the risk such offenders pose to the sofety ond wellbeing of other drivers ond pedestrions.' Fine revenue only partly offsets municipal policing costs. Moreover, a precipitous decline in fine revenues has occurred over the past year with the closure of POA courts due to COVID 19.

We would ask that your government consider an immediate increase in these fines.

Automated Speed Enforcement

On January 20,2020 our Deputy Mayor, John Creelman, spoke with you about problems with restrictive regulations that effectively rule out deployment of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) in all but urban areas. On January 21,2020 Mr. Creelman followed up with a detailed email addressed to Ryan Amato of your staff setting forth the specific issues. He followed up with another email to Mr. Amato in late January of this year. We also raised this issue with you during a ROMA delegation meeting.

ASE is currently permitted only in designated Community Safety Zones and where the speed limit does not exceed 79 km/h. For us to consider its deployment in areas of our town and county, we would need to lower speed limits by I km/h and declare long stretches of rural roads as Community Safety Zones. Both propositions are clearly absurd and should be unnecessary.

When the Province launched ASE, a spokesperson for the Premier's Office told the CBC "Municipal governments are in the best position to determine what needs to be done in order to improve road safety on municipal roods." We can't agree more. The Town of Mono was one of the first municipalities in Ontario to embrace contract policing with the OPP and autment its level of regular enforcement with an additional part-time officer dedicated primarily to traffic enforcement.

Last year, we contracted with the OPP for additional enforcement over and above what we've had now for 20 years. Despite this, speeding and reckless driving remain a chronic and disturbing reality on many of our roads. ASE should at least be a practical option to consider and not something out of reach due to regulations that work for Toronto but not the rest of Ontario.

Regards,

Laura Ryan Mayor

cc: Hon. Doug Downey, Attorney General
Hon. Sylvia Jones, Solicitor General and MPP Dufferin-Caledon Mono Police Services Board
lnsp. Terry Ward, Detachment Commander, Dufferin OPP
All Dufferin Municipalities
Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO)