Canadian Taxpayers Federation calls push to courier speeding tickets “needless”

The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation appears to be having a tough time swallowing the costs that will be associated with using a courier service to issue summons.

The Calgary Police Service announced Tuesday afternoon that it would be using it after holding onto tickets and summonses for the past two months due to the threat of a strike with Canadian Post.

In the past two months it’s managed to tally up 70,000 tickets, issuing an average of 1,600 a day.

“I think that it’s unnecessary, using a courier service to send out tickets is going to cost taxpayers significantly more than it would through normal mail or Canada Post. I don’t know why there’s this urgent need, I think it would make a lot more sense for the Calgary Police Service to hold off and wait until the Canada Post threat is over.”

MacPherson says in a lot of cases it seems expensive for minor offences and if they are tickets that are going to be sent out anyway, than it can wait.

“The problem is we’ve already created twisted incentives for the Calgary Police Service, when in July Calgary approved the hiring of 50 more officers through the revenue of these tickets,” she said.

She believes we’ve created a system where police officers want to generate more revenue because that means they will get more boots on the ground they need and it creates an urgency for revenue.

“At least hold off until the strike is over and send out the tickets at that time,” she said. “Sending by courier is no doubt more expensive than by sending things by normal mail so it’s something that would be a large expense to taxpayers, many of whom are already frustrated.”

“Frankly it’s just not necessary.”