Of course speed cameras work. Why else would Doug Ford want to get rid of them?
Sept. 25, 2025
By
Edward KeenanCity Columnist
The way Doug Ford talks about automated speed cameras, you’d think they were a tax-and-spend, bleeding-heart-pinko plot. They’re just a “cash grab,” according to the premier. That’s why he’s planning,
as the Star reported this week, to ban them.
Ever wonder who was responsible for this socialist scheme to tax drivers in the first place?
Well, the legislation that made speed cameras possible
was drafted in 2017 by then-transportation minister and Liberal MPP Steven Del Duca (who’s now the mayor of Vaughan and is banning them locally). But the regulations that actually enable them were passed in 2019 — under Ford. And both he and Del Duca were acting by request of then-Toronto mayor John Tory, who once led the provincial party that Ford leads now.
Then there’s Brampton mayor Patrick Brown, out there in the heart of Ford Nation. He also led the Progressive Conservatives once, and he recently told Momin Qureshi of 680 News that during his time in office, Brampton has tried various traffic interventions, including road signs and speedbumps.
“Nothing has been as effective, not even close, as speed cameras,” Brown said. “Wherever we’ve placed the cameras … we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in speeding.” What’s more, he says, these things are actually popular: “For every complaint I get about a speed camera, I probably get 10 more asking for a speed camera in their neighbourhood.” (And Brown has the data to back that up:
86 per cent of Brampton residents are in favour of them.)
Ford, a former Toronto councillor, and his late brother Rob, another former mayor,
had no closer ally during their time at City Hall than Councillor Frances Nunziata. What does she have to say? As she put it
in a council meeting this summer: “I don’t even know why we’re debating this.” Nunziata added that she’s constantly asking the city for more speed cameras in her ward because “I’m getting requests from all my constituents.”
These are conservative voices representing areas where Ford’s party won in the 2025 provincial election. And what else has Ford himself said about the cameras? That “all municipalities are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars, (but) I don’t believe that slows (motorists) down.” In other words, he doesn’t believe they work.
Here’s the thing: they do work.
The
Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police says they work. A big study by
Toronto Metropolitan University and the Hospital for Sick Children says they work. An overwhelming consensus of research
from across North America shows they work.
Ford’s idea that speed cameras are some kind of unjustified car tax is nonsense, too. These are fines, levied against drivers who break the law. They are specifically meant to serve as a deterrent, although they also serve as a punishment. Anyone who wants to avoid paying this so-called tax can easily do so. The trick is to obey the law.
Scratch any part of Ford’s talk about this issue, and you’ll find beneath the surface indignation a huge pile of what former Ontario MPP Peter Kormos used to call “bullspit.” Granted, that’s nothing new:
as I’ve written before, Ford is a natural-born BS artist.
Moreover, words tend to travel from his gut to his mouth without first consulting his brain. This usually serves him okay: his gut may not always align with reality, but it’s a reliable indicator of how his voters feel. In this case, though, I’m not so sure that’s true. Speed cameras enjoy
broad public support, as seen in opinion polls and in commentary from institutions and politicians alike. Who’s actually crying out to ban them?
It’s not unusual for Ford to blatantly disregard evidence in making decisions. But usually when he does that, you can at least see the political sense in it. Here, we have a policy that saves lives, that’s popular even among Ford’s ideological allies, that the police brass supports. And it was
his own policy in the first place.
The only people who have publicly opposed speed cameras in a concerted way are the anonymous criminals who keep cutting them down. The absurd wave of widespread and repeated vandalism they’ve perpetrated has made a laughing stock of our police department, and it also appears to have provided Ford with an occasion to reconsider this whole topic.
If you can’t catch ’em, join ’em, I guess. It’s as sensible an explanation for Ford’s anti-camera crusade as any.
www.cp24.com
