“Photo radar will generate revenue; however, the intent is to modify driver behaviour, which should ultimately result in fewer speeders. Our hope is that over time, minimal revenue would be generated from this initiative, since more drivers would be obeying the posted speed limits.” — Ontario Minister of Transportation Gilles Pouliot, letter to the Toronto Star, January 1994.
Photo radar has been a divisive issue in Ontario politics since an 11-month experiment in the mid-1990s. The debate has familiar talking points: one side argues that enforcing speed limits using cameras effectively slows down drivers and promotes road safety, the other argues it’s a privacy-invading tax grab designed to increase government revenues. The conversation is only heating up, as evidenced by the recent spree of vandalism involving cameras in Toronto and Premier Doug Ford’s vow to get rid of them — despite pleas from some municipalities.
Photo radar was first adopted in Canada in 1988 in Calgary. Proponents believed it would create safer driving conditions and allow police to avoid confrontations with motorists while being deployed in more useful ways. There were hopes that photo radar would have a similar effect on motorist behaviour as drunk driving campaigns did during the 1980s, which combined increasing public awareness and implementing stiff fines.
It gained traction in Ontario in the early 1990s, following three coroners’ inquests for fatal accidents along Highway 403 in Mississauga. The inquests recommended photo radar; the OPP proposed six-month tests near Barrie and Peterborough.
Illustration of how photo radar works. Globe and Mail, May 17, 1994.
One issue was cost. While a standard radar gun cost $3,700, a photo radar unit requiring cameras and a van would set police back $80,000. Another was who would be charged — and where the money would flow. While Alberta fined the driver, Ontario laws charged the owner of the vehicle. While fines in Alberta were given to local police departments, any revenue in Ontario would go to the province.
Premier Bob Rae’s NDP government included photo radar in an omnibus bill introduced in the fall of 1993. Rae cited the deaths of his parents-in-law in a car accident among the reasons he pushed for the technology, which he knew would be controversial. “We’re prepared to ride out the storm of opposition,” he told high school students in Woodstock in December 1993. “I don’t want to see anyone, any family, go through the tragedy I experienced. There are just too many people being killed out there.”
The opposition was unimpressed. Deputy Liberal leader Sean Conway predicted there would be “something of a firestorm” if it were implemented. The government limited debate on the bill, which passed on December 13, 1993.
Editorial cartoon, Toronto Star, February 20, 1995
Critics quickly emerged. Among the most vocal was Toronto Star automotive columnist Jim Kenzie, who saw no evidence from other jurisdictions that it was anything other than a tax grab. Over the next two years, Kenzie railed against photo radar, in columns that ran up to three pages long. “Photo radar, the latest revenue-generating techno-toy that has budget-crunched bureaucrats around the world licking their chops in anticipation of funding their inflation-indexed pensions for at least long enough for them to cash out,” he wrote in November 1993.
Kenzie believed that the technology wouldn’t prevent speeding and reduce crashes and that it was a Big Brother-style invasion of privacy. He wasn’t totally opposed to it, believing it would be more effective if used in school zones, but preferred the use of red-light cameras or stronger enforcement of seatbelt laws.
Photo radar cartoon, Toronto Star, October 8, 1994
The information and privacy commission was also uneasy about the legislation. It believed there was too much potential for innocent bystanders to be photographed, as occurred in residential areas of Calgary. “You’re looking at the Big Brother scenario of George Orwell’s 1984,” assistant privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian told the Toronto Star. “While it may be stretching things, unless some checks are put on things, it’s conceivable that everywhere you go in the future you could be monitored.”
Initial plans were to use photo radar on 400-series highways, but several municipalities were interested in using it in residential areas. When Metro Toronto chairman Alan Tonks mused in February 1994 about studying its use to curb aggressive driving, around 400 angry calls flooded his office (his phone number was provided by two radio stations). Among those who felt Tonks was misguided was Metro Toronto councillor Howard Moscoe, who felt photo radar “works very well in fascist dictatorships.”
Interior of photo radar van, Toronto Star, July 31, 1994.
Implementation was delayed several times during the tendering process, where the contract was awarded to Toronto-based Canadian Public Technologies for $713,000. The cameras would be installed in four vans parked on the side of 400-series highways in the GTA, as well as major routes in the Peterborough area, and would be operated by OPP detachments based in Burlington, Cobourg, Downsview, and Port Credit. They were equipped to take two pictures per second, based on drivers exceeding a predetermined speed (usually starting between six and 20 km/h over the posted limit) which was based on traffic volume and weather conditions. It was expected that at least a third of the photos would be unusable.
Fines would be levied against the owner of the vehicle, not the driver. Because of this, no demerit points would be issued, but drivers were told to report their tickets to their insurers. License plate renewals would be denied if fines weren’t paid. Car rental agencies lobbied for revisions to the legislation so that they wouldn’t be on the hook for lead-footed renters.
Photo of demonstration equipment in Peel Region, Toronto Star, March 25, 1993.
As the August 15, 1994 launch of photo radar approached, drivers shared ideas on how to dodge it by obscuring their plates, which carried the risk of fines up to $500. Among those discussed on computer bulletin boards was spraying plates with hairspray to trap debris. The Better Business Bureau received hundreds of complaints from motorists who were fooled into buying useless anti-radar equipment such as $200 plate protectors. One company sold film that obscured license plates if they were viewed through a polarized lens, a type that the province didn’t use on its cameras.
As photo radar went into effect, Kenzie imagined several methods of protest, ranging from cell phone networks advising where the vans were parked to forming a convoy moving at exactly the speed limit on Highway 401, with the final vehicle displaying Rae’s office phone number “so you could all let him know how much you like it.” In subsequent weeks, Kenzie outlined how tickets could be fought in court, raged against longer commutes, and warned of the possibility of accidents caused by drivers suddenly slowing down when they spotted the vans. In short, Kenzie railed against “the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this scheme.”
Editorial cartoon, Toronto Star, July 7, 1995
Radio stations that aired van locations were criticized by government officials, who could do little to stop them despite some complaints from the public. “We’re providing a service to our listeners,” Fan 590 operations manager Bob Mackowycz told the Toronto Star.
Despite the controversy, the OPP reported that few tickets were being challenged. Over the first month, 3,273 tickets were issued. By October 1994, 27. 627 tickets were being mailed out. For several consecutive months, the average driving speed dropped by up to 42 per cent.
Editorial cartoon, August 15, 1994
“Typically, the silent majority of Canadians who support it don’t say much,” photo radar supervisor Colin Brittan told the Toronto Star, “but in the case of photo radar, there have been very few people who have been saying a great deal about it and they have conducted a fairly consistent media blitz of criticism. Collectively it has tested our skills—and tested me.”
By March 1995, there were discussions to expand photo radar across the province. For example, it was viewed as a possible way to control speeding along Highway 3 between Windsor and Leamington, a stretch plagued with accidents. The government considered adding 30 new vans to the fleet.
A poll conducted by Environics on April 17 showed that 55 per cent of Ontarians approved of photo radar for fining speeders. Many respondents liked the lower speeds and had adjusted to the technology. Women favoured photo radar more than men, while 18-to-24-year-old men were the most opposed (and also the worst demographic for accidents).
Map of highways covered by photo radar, Toronto Star, August 5, 1994.
As a provincial election loomed, the opposition parties lined up against photo radar. The Liberals criticized it as a “cash cow.” By January 1995, leader Lyn McLeod felt there was no clear evidence that it was working and that it might aid speeders since drivers weren’t stopped on the spot.
The Progressive Conservatives believed, as journalist John Ibbitson observed in his book Promised Land, that photo radar was “a statist intervention in personal liberties. Virtually all Ontario drivers speed. Keeping to within 20 km or so over the limit, provided the roads are dry and the lanes are open, is seen as reasonable by most people. While drivers were prepared to take their chances in the cat-and-mouse game with police cruisers, they saw photo radar as an unfair change in the rules.”
PC leader Mike Harris argued that the technology could not catch impaired drivers or aggressive drivers, such as rapid lane changers or tailgaters. He frequently referred to statistics from a 1992 government report that linked most fatal collisions to impaired driving, even though those stats covered all accidents across all types of roads. On 400-series highways, the OPP found that speed had, until recently, been the main contributing factor for fatalities.
Editorial cartoon, Toronto Star, August 16, 1994
It probably also occurred to Harris that photo radar was used in suburban areas that were part of his base, while the technology had more support among urban non-PC voters.
Harris promised during his victorious 1995 election campaign to scrap photo radar ASAP. This did not please Rae. “I think it is unwise,” he told reporters in late June. “I think it puts human lives at risk, which is not something that a reasonable government would want to do.”
Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada chairperson John Bates felt it was “really dumb” to cancel the program. “The only people who want to cancel photo radar are the people who speed.” He also pointed to a recent American insurance industry report, which noted the program was improving road safety in Ontario. Meanwhile, the OPP noticed that speeding was rising again, as people became more confident they wouldn’t be caught with only four vans on the road.
Editorial cartoon, Kingston Whig Standard, August 16, 1994.
Despite suggestions from several GTA mayors to reconsider their stance, the Tories fulfilled their promise and killed photo radar on July 5, 1995. Over its 11-month life, photo radar collected nearly $22 million in fines and issued over 300,000 tickets. Anyone with outstanding fines would still have to pay them.
Solicitor-general Bob Runciman conceded that it would have taken three years of study to reach a proper conclusion about the program’s effectiveness. Now, they would never know. In its place, the government promised to extend an OPP anti-aggressive driving campaign and deploy more traffic cops in areas where photo radar had been used.
Editorial cartoon, Windsor Star, February 1, 1995
Over the ensuing decades, Kenzie reminded his readers that his coverage helped kill photo radar. Harris told Kenzie that his work was among the factors that secured his election.
But the idea wasn’t dead.
Premier Dalton McGuinty toyed with restoring photo radar in 2004, at a time when red light cameras were being tested in five municipalities. Groups including police, road builders, and the Ontario Trucking Association called for its return, especially in construction and school zones. “It’s always going to be just one tool in the tool box,” OPP sergeant Cam Wooley told the Toronto Star in 2006. “But in some situations, it can be the best tool.” When Ottawa tried to implement a photo radar system that year, the province denied permission.
Editorial cartoon, Toronto Star, June 21, 1995
In early 2016, Toronto mayor John Tory announced he would ask Premier Kathleen Wynne for permission to allow photo radar on city streets to modernize policing and address budgetary concerns, and more efficient deployment of officers. Wynne was open to the idea, feeling it was no longer as contentious or politicized as it was during the 1990s, but the impetus had to come from municipalities rather than being imposed by the province. The opposition was also open to bringing it back, with the NDP viewing it as a safety tool and the PCs as a revenue builder. While admitting his party had killed it, PC leader Patrick Brown noted that “the reality is municipalities are desperately looking at new revenue mechanisms because of underfunding.”
Polling showed public support. A December 2015 Forum Research Poll found 49 per cent of Torontonians were fine with implementing photo radar, while 34 per cent were not.
Editorial cartoon, August 17, 1994
The plea worked. In November 2016, Wynne announced new legislation which would allow municipalities to install safety cameras near schools and in recognized community safety zones, as well as more red-light cameras. The Safer School Zones Act would pass in May 2017.
By the 2020s, photo radar cameras — now referred to as “automated speed enforcement” — became a fixture of Toronto streets. The legislation placed limits on where they could be used, outlawing them on roads where the speed limit was 80 km/h or more. Some of this was to prove that it was a method of improving local safety and not a cash grab, conceding there were still political risks in using the technology — risks that recently reared their head again.
Sources: Promised Land by John Ibbitson (Scarborough: Prentice Hall Canada, 1997); the February 7, 1994 edition of the Financial Post; the November 11, 1993, August 23, 1994, October 7, 1994, December 15, 1994, June 22, 1995, June 23, 1995, and July 6, 1995 editions of the Globe and Mail; the January 8, 1993, March 25, 1993, November 6, 1993, December 3, 1993, December 7, 1993, February 18, 1994, February 19, 1994, February 26, 1994, April 29, 1994, July 28, 1994, August 13, 1994, August 20, 1994, September 12, 1994, September 18, 1994, January 11, 1995, January 26, 1995, January 31, 1995, April 22, 1995, July 1, 1995, May 3, 2003, March 25, 2006, February 23, 2016, November 9, 2016, February 6, 2019, and August 10, 2021 editions of the Toronto Star; and the March 22, 1995 edition of the Windsor Star.
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