Toronto·Coming Up LiveOntario Premier Doug Ford is scheduled to make an announcement Thursday morning that is expected to touch on the future use of speed cameras in the province — a traffic enforcement tool he has called an ineffective “tax grab.”Ford has called speed cams a ‘tax grab.’ He is scheduled to speak at 11 a.m. ThursdayEthan Lang · CBC News · Posted: Sep 25, 2025 9:39 AM EDT | Last Updated: 36 minutes agoOntario Premier Doug Ford is scheduled to speak to the media at 11 a.m. Thursday. The announcement is expected to focus on speed cameras, which Ford has said he’s ‘dead against.’ (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press)Ontario Premier Doug Ford is scheduled to make an announcement Thursday morning that is expected to touch on the future use of speed cameras in the province — a traffic enforcement tool he has called an ineffective “tax grab.”Ford has previously urged municipalities to get rid of them, praising the City of Vaughan for doing just that this month. He has also said if municipalities don’t ditch the cameras, he would.CBC Toronto will carry Thursday’s announcement live in this story at 11 a.m.After three speed cameras were vandalized in Toronto last week — the 20th time the devices were tampered with in a span of just one week — Ford told reporters that he believes speed cameras don’t slow traffic down.”People in the area, they learn there’s a speed trap, they slow down. But how about people that are going through the community?” he said Friday. “They’ve taken hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars out of taxpayers’ pockets.”Multiple speed cameras have been vandalized or chopped down in Toronto in recent weeks. (Paul Smith/CBC)Ford has also said there are “millions” of ways to get drivers to slow down that are not speed cameras, including flashing lights, proper signage, roundabouts and speed bumps.His stance is in opposition to police forces and municipalities that say evidence shows cameras effectively reduce speed and increase road safety.Others say effectiveness of speed cams is provenThe Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the mayor of Toronto all said this month that they support speed cameras.The police chiefs’ association previously said in a statement that using automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras “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.”That statement followed a study from SickKids this summer that found ASE cameras had cut speeding around Toronto schools nearly in half.Mayor Olivia Chow is also set to introduce recommendations to strengthen Toronto’s ASE program at a city committee Thursday, according to a news release from her office. Among other things, the motion will ask the province to “provide their road safety rationale, and data, for removing ASE cameras.” Ford and his government also weren’t always opposed to these cameras.While it was Toronto that first asked for speed cameras back in 2016, and former premier Kathleen Wynne who made changes to the Highway Traffic Act a year later to allow for their use in school and community zones, it was the Ford government that passed enabling regulations in December of 2019 that allowed municipalities to run such programs.ABOUT THE AUTHOREthan Lang is a reporter for CBC Toronto. Ethan has also worked in Whitehorse, where he covered the Yukon Legislative Assembly, and Halifax, where he wrote on housing and forestry for the Halifax Examiner.With files from The Canadian Press
Ontario premier to make announcement about speed cameras after promising to axe them
