Windsor city council is asking the province for help in collecting $1.3 million in unpaid parking tickets.
During Monday's meeting, the council approved a call by Ward 4 Councillor Mark McKenzie to have a letter sent to the province to address the issue of collecting unpaid parking tickets.
The city has been sending out notices to collect some of the unpaid fees but the issue stems from a decision by the Ontario government.
In 2022, the province eliminated licence plate stickers and the costs associated with renewing, and then on July 1, 2024, the government moved to an automatic licence plate renewal process, meaning Ontario drivers weren't required to even renew their licence plates manually online or in person at a Service Ontario location, where in the past any unpaid fines were collected by the Ministry of Transportation on behalf of municipalities.
Under the current system licence plates, assuming the owner has valid insurance and no outstanding fines or tolls, will renew automatically 90 days before expiry.
If a licence can't be renewed automatically, the province said the vehicle owner will be notified through email, text, voicemail or mail and be required to renew manually online or in person at a Service Ontario location.
McKenzie says this is not just a Windsor problem and if we're owed $1.3 million, how much is owed in London, Hamilton or Toronto?
He says they are looking for a way to close this loophole.
"Right now we have staff running around and sending letters and we're talking about putting scanners into cars so we can scan licence plates," he says. "All that comes at a cost to the Windsor taxpayer and it's something that is now being thrown onto us because of a decision that was made provincially."
McKenzie says maybe it's as simple as forcing people to go online to renew their licence plate and it won't happen unless they pay for their parking tickets.
"There's got to be some sort of mechanism that we can at least implement here to make it easier and that way we can get our money back. Again, $1.3 million is not chump change," he says.
Under the old system, a police officer on patrol could tell if a licence plate registration was up to date based on the sticker affixed to the rear plate, but now, an officer would only be able to learn that information if it was detected by Licence Plate Recognition technology or if information was sought on a driver's licence plate.
Even then, the officer could only issue a ticket for a licence plate being invalid and they are not responsible for collecting unpaid fines.