Doug Ford to reveal plan to punish speeding drivers next week as he stands firm on removing speed cameras

Three more speed cameras were vandalized earlier this week, with two along Avenue Road and one on Mount Pleasant cut down. Courtney Heels reports.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says there are “a million different ways” that can slow drivers down instead of using automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras, vowing to reveal those methods next week.

Speaking to reporters at an unrelated news conference outside of ice cream manufacturer Chapman’s on Friday, Ford answered a question regarding the comments the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) made about speed cameras, urging the premier to reconsider their use.

“He’s a chair and he’s doing his job. If I go to my doctors and I’m eating this ice cream and say, ‘Doug, stop eating ice cream,’ but there’s better ways to slow down traffic than gouge the taxpayer,” said Ford, who snacked on an ice cream sandwich during the news conference.

The OACP voiced their support for speed cameras on Thursday, calling on the premier to reconsider his plan to remove them entirely.

“Employing ASE tools has been proven to reduce speeding, change driver behaviour, and make our roads safer for everyone—drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and especially children and other vulnerable road users,” the association wrote.

Ford, however, says there are two ways to penalize speeding: punishing those drivers and fining them. In the premier’s view, the speed cameras do nothing more than take “hundreds of millions of dollars out” of the pockets of taxpaying Ontarians.

“God knows the government gouges people enough on their taxes and every other penny they get off them. All I’m saying is you want to slow down traffic; stay tuned next week: I’m going to show you,” Ford said.

“I spent four years in Toronto, my brother slowing traffic, I can bring it to a halt. I can bring it below the speed limit, but they don’t want to do that … if they really want to slow people down, I will show them how to slow people down.”

Ford pointed to measures like turnabouts, speed bumps, and installing flashing lights by school zones as a handful of the “million different ways” that can slow people down.

While Chief Mark Campbell, president of the OACP, acknowledges Ford’s government has “always been focused” on public safety, adding the organization is “overwhelmingly aligned” with the province’s position to use other tools to augment road and traffic safety, Campbell says a collection of measures is needed to change drivers’ behaviours and make roads safe.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all. It’s not that it should just only be automated speed enforcement. It’s really a collection of all of those issues that should be aligned to ensure that we are enhancing road and traffic safety in our communities,” Campbell told CP24 on Friday afternoon.

Toronto looking at ‘alternative installation methods’ for ASEs

Meanwhile, Mayor Olivia Chow says the city is looking at “alternative installation methods” to make it harder for vandals to target automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras after more than a dozen of them were vandalized or cut down throughout Toronto this month.

Chow made the comment to reporters following an unrelated news conference earlier on Friday, saying that the city is also asking Police Chief Myron Demkiw to “step up on the monitoring and catching (of) those criminals” behind the vandalism.

The mayor’s comments were made after at least 20 ASE cameras in Toronto were damaged in September, including three that were chopped down along Avenue Road and Mount Pleasant Avenue over the weekend.

Sixteen cameras across Toronto were either downed or vandalized over the course of a single night earlier this month and, days earlier, the speed camera on Parkside Drive was toppled for the seventh time this year.

Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw has previously said officers would be deployed to conduct traffic enforcement in the areas where cameras were being cut down.

The city has said it has received more than 800 reported incidents of vandalism involving speed cameras this year, although most were “minor” incidents and did not knock them out of service.

The city noted all speed cameras are located in community safety zones, like schools, playgrounds and hospitals.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has dubbed these cameras a “tax grab,” and went on to suggest they unfairly target motorists who are driving slightly over the speed limit.

“Hopefully the cities will get rid of them… or I’m going to help them get rid of them very shortly,” Ford told reporters on Sept. 9. Soon after the premier’s remarks, the City of Vaughan suspended its speed camera program—earning Ford’s praise.

“Municipal speed cameras are nothing but a cash grab. We can keep our streets safe without making life more expensive for hardworking taxpayers,” Ford said in a social media post on Tuesday.

Chow, however, supported the fines that are generated from these speed cameras, saying that money goes into other city services, like creating better crosswalks for pedestrians.

“Some of that money (also) goes to victim services to help people, victims of crime,” Chow said.

When asked if the city would consider alternative methods to speed cameras, Chow said installing slow-down measures like speed bumps or roundabouts also comes with pushback.

“Speed bumps, humps, yes it slows down cars but it’s also not the most popular thing, so it requires some kind of agreement with the local residents. You can’t just put it in, also, it costs a bit of money, and it takes time,” Chow said.

With files from CP24’s Bryann Aguilar and Codi Wilson, and The Canadian Press