Breakin’ the Law

There are endless ways to make trouble, but only a few ways to enforce the law. In response to the recent addition of Automated Speed Enforcement to Brighton’s streets, and a bit of concern expressed about it, this week I’ll give a rundown of how laws are enforced in Brighton.

The Ontario Provincial Police

Not many people realize that the Ontario Provincial Police is not operated directly by the Province of Ontario. The OPP was founded by an Order in Council, back in 1909, and exists to enforce laws under the Community Safety and Policing Act, which came into effect just this month (previously it was the Police Services Act 1990, and many others before that). It was originally provincially funded, and remains so for some of its operations, such as patrolling provincial highways and some First Nations, but in most communities where it operates it is funded by the local municipality and governed by a local Police Services Board. Brighton’s Police Services Board recently amalgamated with other Northumberland municipalities who use the OPP for local policing; Cobourg and Port Hope each have municipal police forces, though rural Port Hope is still serviced by the OPP. Brighton’s OPP contract is one of the single largest expenses in our budget, amounting to almost $1.9M in 2024.

OPP officers are charged with enforcing federal and provincial laws, but they can also help out with regard to bylaw enforcement. For example, while there is a municipal bylaw against the discharge of firearms in residential areas, there is no provincial law against it; but if someone is shooting in your neighbourhood, please call the OPP rather than filing a complaint with our Bylaw Enforcement Officer!

Bylaw Enforcement

Municipal bylaws cover everything from confirming the proceedings of a council meeting (every week we pass a bylaw, just to ensure that our meeting is authoritative) to how high weeds can grow in our yards (property standards bylaw) to regulating how businesses can operate within the municipality to attempts to deter public nuisances. We have an excellent guide to municipal by-law enforcement here.

Bylaw enforcement might come through a Bylaw Enforcement Officer (ours is a friendly guy named Allen, please be kind to him, he’s just doing his job!), or through another municipal officer such as a Building Inspector. Municipal bylaws are typically enforced through fines, which can be enforced by the courts if a resident wants to appeal the fine rather than pay it. If the court finds in favour of the municipality and the resident still doesn’t pay the fine, the court can authorize the municipality to add the amount of the fine to the resident’s tax bill. This can be time consuming and costly, so more and more municipalities (and other bodies) are moving toward Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs).

Administrative Monetary Penalties

Municipalities use Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs) to shift enforcement away from the courts, which are often overburdened. Even the province uses AMPs for driving offences, so that not every speeding ticket has to go to court. Brighton passed an AMP bylaw last year, allowing us to issue tickets for bylaw offences. Residents are still able to appeal tickets under the AMP bylaw, but they do so through a screening officer and then a hearings officer that the municipality has retained. This provides faster service, at less cost, than going through the courts under the Provincial Offences Act.

Another benefit of AMPs is that ticket revenues come back to the municipality, rather than going to the province. This is particularly beneficial when it comes to traffic enforcement: if an OPP officer issues a speeding ticket, that fine becomes provincial revenues; but if our new Automated Speed Enforcement system issues a ticket, it becomes municipal revenues. Brighton will get more speed enforcement coverage, and get the revenues from speeding tickets, while at the same time freeing up OPP officers for other matters.

I do want to stress that I don’t see fines as a good revenue source. We aren’t bringing in Automated Speed Enforcement as a “tax grab”; the goal of the program is changing driver behaviour, and ideally we would love to see no revenues come out of this program at all. Any revenues we do see from this program should go back into making our community safer. If you are concerned about ensuring that we don’t have any revenues from speeding tickets, please do your part and slow down.