‘Speed cameras, not a cash grab’ says Guelph Mayor
Posted Sep 29, 2025 03:40:28 PM.
Last Updated Sep 29, 2025 03:59:40 PM.
Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie has a few issues with the way the province handled the municipal speed camera situation.
He took to social media late last week to express his frustration.
Specifically, he has a problem with the way Premier Doug Ford and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria categorized the programs as a “cash grab” or a simple revenue tool.
He also took exception when the premier indicated drivers were being fined for going just a couple of kilometres over the limit.
“None of those statements that were made are actually factual, and they’re not true. The threshold for speeding was a lot greater than two to four kilometres over. It wasn’t a tax grab. It wasn’t a cash grab. It was a program that was running to try to make excessive speeding lower in school areas, that’s it,” said Guthrie.
He went on to say, “I don’t mind if the province wants to amend its own program, but in doing so, don’t misspeak about how the program was running and how my municipality, and many others, were actually running the program.”
Guthrie referenced two crosswalk improvement projects in Guelph that were paid for exclusively through revenue from the school zone speed camera program.
“The money that we received by policy went directly into a fund to do more road safety and traffic calming measures, and it funded those things both from a program perspective and an infrastructure perspective.”
Guthrie noted it wasn’t the general public that had to foot the bill.
“The only people who are paying are the people who are breaking the law. That’s it. If you are breaking the law, you get a ticket, you pay, and you learn your lesson. Hopefully, there’s behavioural change so that hopefully when people are speeding around schools, they don’t do it anymore.”
Instead of speed cameras, the province is pushing alternative traffic calming measures like speed bumps or roundabouts.
Guthrie said that will shift the financial responsibility onto ratepayers.
“I still need to do traffic calming. I still need to do infrastructure around reducing speeds in school zones. And, if it’s not coming the municipal level, the province has indicated that they are going to create a fund to do those things for municipalities to use, but there is only one taxpayer.”
Guthrie reiterated that if the province wants to cancel its own program, that’s its prerogative, he just wants it to be truthful and not try to paint it as something it wasn’t.
