Pay now, or pay later

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This article was published 12/10/2023 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Unpleasant, but understandable.

That’s about the only thing you can say about the City of Winnipeg’s plan to seek increased powers to ensure that people pay their outstanding parking tickets and other municipal fines.

The powers they’re looking for? The ability to require the payment of having fines like parking tickets attached to drivers licence renewals, and having other fines added to municipal tax bills.

It’s understandable. (The city’s already preparing to use its existing powers, come January, to tow your vehicle away if it’s parked illegally and you already have three unpaid parking tickets.)

So why the extra powers? After all, the city can already take you to court for failing to pay tickets.

The problem is that the process for taking a civil action to enforce the payment of parking tickets is slow, inefficient and can be more expensive for a municipality than the return it gets from a collected fine. And that means scofflaws can play rope-a-dope about paying their fines, and sometimes avoid payment entirely.

Right now, the city of Winnipeg has about $12 million in outstanding unpaid fines, with two-thirds of that amount— $8 million — in parking tickets alone.

And to be absolutely clear, the city is not inventing the steering wheel here.

In Quebec, all municipalities province-wide are deemed to be collecting entities: if you don’t pay your parking tickets, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec gets involved.

“If the SAAQ is notified by a collecting entity that you have not paid a fine, you can no longer: drive a vehicle; register a vehicle in your name; let someone drive a vehicle registered in your name; transfer ownership of a vehicle registered in your name if you sell it; discard a vehicle. … Once the collecting entity has notified the SAAQ that your fine has been paid, your driving and operating privileges will be reinstated.”

In Newfoundland and Labrador, parking tickets are administered by the province: “Motor Registration Division will not renew vehicle registrations or renew driver’s licenses unless you pay all outstanding fines in full or get a clearance letter from Fines Administration advising that a payment agreement is in place.” Your driver’s licence renewal helpfully lists the amount owing from the latest tabulation of outstanding tickets.

Other locations, like Saint John, N.B., have even more draconian measures: the fines website there says if you’re the registered owner of a vehicle and just ignore your tickets, an arrest warrant can be issued: “Police have the authority to place any person under arrest who has not paid their outstanding parking meter ticket warrants. The person who is picked up by the police officer for an outstanding warrant will be taken to the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre to either make a payment or payments or to serve jail time.” Now, that could put a crimp in your day.

As for other municipal fines, plenty of jurisdictions already have the ability to add unpaid fines to your municipal tax bill. It’s a low-cost way for the city to virtually guarantee payment.

So is suspending your driving privileges until you pay what you owe.

It’s a pretty safe bet that no one likes getting a parking ticket — invariably, they arrive on your windshield on days when you’re already being tested by time and acircumstance.

In your heart of hearts, you’d no doubt enjoy nothing more than balling up the ticket and throwing it in the nearest trash can — but the fact is that a parking ticket is your notification of an offence under municipal bylaws.

You can always try to fight fight City Hall — that is, you can challenge your ticket through the available process — but simply ignoring it shouldn’t be a viable option.