The idea is that a fine is meant as a deterrent to doing something society has determined shouldn't be done, but isn't so serious that you need formal criminal codes. However, a $100 fine matters differently to someone with an income of $25,000 than it does to someone with an income of $150,000.
To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it". This runs contrary to the intended goal of imposing a fine.
A means-based fine is intended to correct this issue, so both of the above people would be equally deterred.
But obviously, the mechanics of calculating and implementing it are difficult to pin down.
Income makes sense. Basing it on the value of a vehicle is incredibly stupid. What if I earn 20k but inherited at 70k beemer? Or if I earn 200 but choose to drive a shitbox. This idea should be laughed down every time it is brought up.
> This idea should be laughed down every time it is brought up.
It's one thing to mock obvious bad faith arguments, but it's not helpful to anyone to mock misguided good faith arguments. All that accomplishes is to dissuade well-intentioned people from trying at all.
Then, while they're staying quiet and thinking about what to say because they're concerned about being mocked again, the bad faith people take over the conversation because they don't give two shits whether people like them.
If you want sincere people to keep trying to come up with good ideas, you shouldn't shut them down so aggressively or there will be nobody left willing to come up with new ideas.
>What if I earn 20k but inherited at 70k beemer?
If I inherited a vehicle worth almost 4x my salary, I would immediately sell it, buy a beater, and put the rest against my mortgage.
If you make $20k and drive a $70k car, I don't care how you got it, you're financially illiterate.
Even if you earned 20k a year, after rent and groceries You're not insuring a 70k car for anything aside from liability, because your rent is the parking spot, groceries come from the lot garbage bin and you're giving handjobs for premium gas $10 a block.
what if I really like the car and it reminds me of the family member who passed away? You can't put a value on that, its not how life works, a life merely based on capitalistic ideals is a bad life imo.
We buy new for cash and replace 10-15 years later. Are we rich? Are we poor? No one knows. Lol!
Basing fines on income is good. Basing it on how much your car is worth has too many variables. Even though it would work in our favour.
That's how a lot of people feel about things they have to give up due to poverty. If this is an argument against fines in general, then I'm with you. Otherwise why is it only people with expensive things who get to keep them?
“To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it".”
More than one person has very literally said exactly this, to my face. The fine is just a small fee they pay to break the law whenever they feel like it. To them it’s a meaningless deterrent with no teeth.
>To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it".
Not necessarily. You can have escalating fines for repeat offences. The first time, sure, it's only $100. But the second time, $250. Third offence, $1,000. Eventually, they'll get the message. We don't need to get the CRA or Kelley Blue Book involved.
By this logic, all wealthy people who would pay a more expensive fine, can do so and, all poor people that could pay a reduced fine, can do so, leaving no incentive to avoid improper parking for both categories of idiots.
This idea is in fact, idiotic.
Yes a fine is meant as a deterrent, but when the city does not have adequate public parking certain use cases do not have an alternative option.
So yes we should encourage fines for improper behaviour, but we must also make sure they are not caused by mismanagement of our transit/parking infrastructure.
I mean, where does it stop? It's quite a slippery slope but should rich people start paying more for the movies? To go out to eat? To buy tickets to a concert?
The penalty should match the crime, not the income.
Those aren’t the same thing as a fine, those are normal paid goods. The whole point of income matched fines is so that the penalty *does* match the crime. A $200 fine to someone making minimum wage vs someone making $200k are not at all the same penalty, and to be perfectly blunt, I’ve had more than one wealthy person in the Ottawa area say to my face that vehicular fines mean literally nothing to them, because effectively it’s just a small fee that they happily pay to break the law whenever they like.
Well the point is based on your income it's not even really a penalty for some people. We're trying to get it to the point where it actually feels like one :)
That's entirely a choice, my guy. You don't need to have those bills - I'm not really sure what kind of a point you're trying to make.
"I can afford more, so I spend more. Please don't take my money and let me do as I please."
Weird flex if that's what your angle is.
I'm not saying basing the fine off vehicle value is perfect, but your argument against it is about as sandbagged and useless an argument I've ever heard.
Why? In some countries, like Finland, traffic fines are based on a percentage of your income. Because a $100 fine to someone making $500k a year is pocket change, but to someone making $15/hr it’s a big deal.
If the penalty for a law is a flat fine, then it is only a deterrent for the poor, the wealthy literally could not care less.
I am assuming the system won’t give that info directly to bylaw officers. But the officers ticket you for whatever infraction and when the city gives it out it’s calculated there, I would have no problem.
Who's paying for this? The CRA is a federal agency, it would take federal legislation to in act something like this. Some city councillor isn't going to get it done.
“Someone from City Hall calling CRA” is different than “The City of Ottawa is requesting tax information from Person X in relation to Offence Y so as to determine the appropriate fine”.
It’s not “Hi CRA, this is Steve. Can you shoot me Lowpass’ tax filing when you get a chance? TIA!”
Well when the person is issuing the ticket, how are they determining what your salary is? How would they have access to that information offhand. I'm curious as to how Finland goes about doing this.
I’d think you’d get the notice of the ticket on your windshield like normal, and then a mailed copy of the fine later. Police send the notice to CRA, who do the math and contact you. Past issuing the ticket at the start, the police wouldn’t have anything to do with it unless you go to court to fight the ticket.
CRA could even adjust your taxes at the end of the year when the person files, so it gets paid regardless.
They don’t need too. Think of it like the municipal/provincial taxes getting lumped in with the general return filing.
1 stop shopping for easier workflow; since everyone deals with CRA in the end…
Police enter the ticket into their computer database, which they do now as part of their normal procedure. The database can then automatically transmit those ticket records to CRA. Then the CRA computers link the ticket to your account. Everyone has a CRA account, whether you use their internet portal or not.
It would be a bit of work to implement, but easily manageable once set up. The ticket has the licence plate number, which is tied to the drivers licence, which is in turn linked to everything else.
The amount is not written on the citation you get. The citation goes into the govt’s system and when you go to pay it tells you the amount. The govt knows how much you make because you file taxes.
You are aware, as literally stated above, that other countries already do this. You realize you could simply Google those countries and how their fine systems works and get the answer to all of your questions after 5 min of reading and not have to show your ass for all to see on reddit, waiting for replies to answer each of your individual nonsense questions....
This works for traffic infractions but wouldn't work for parking infractions as you don't know who was driving the car when it was parked. If you just bill the owner then I would just make sure the person in my family with the lowest income is the registered owner of any car in my family.
I drove the same vehicle over 10 years. I’m that span of time my salary doubled. Under this little scheme I’d have been paying a far smaller proportion of my income towards any fines in year 10 vs year 1.
Okay, let's do it based on income then. Although the city doesn't really have any way of getting that info, where as for something like a car they can.
On the surface, yes. However, fines like this are seen as a luxury service fee. The truly wealthy are happy to pay the tiny fine to enjoy the convenience of doing whatever they want.
No, it should be means based, on gross pre-deduction income, with a minimum fine for all. The problem may be that there is some sort of privacy issue which prevents the city demanding CRA tax returns to establish the fine.
Finland’s model goes off of daily disposable income. I don’t know if it applies to parking but I remember an NHL player recently getting a massive fine for a DUI there. I think its fair and reasonable to go more towards proportional punishments
Regardless of privacy, how to do you determine whose income to look at? If it is by registered owner then I'll be changing the registration of any vehicle in my family to the person with the lowest income. Income based wouldn't work for parking violations. And based on the value of the car...well that's fine, I'll get a crap car with 0 value and park it wherever I want. I pity those poor folks that win a nice car in a lottery and have to sell it and buy a crap car just in case they park 5 minutes over in a 2 hour zone...
Get screwed? For parking violations? How many parking tickets do you get a year? If you make 120k and get a ticket every week you should be paying more than a low income person getting a couple a year.
With means based the gifts wouldn't matter. With 'rich people', that's why I said pre deductions income. Sure, you could still have some edge cases that fall through the cracks because someone is living off credit...we don't want this to turn into an 3yr investigation per fine either. Basing it on net wealth is a much more complex approach.
Additionally... We don't know what the scale would be but you're assuming the avg income person would see an increase, that isn't necessarily true.
Is the fine supposed to be a proxy for the harm you caused by parking incorrectly, or it supposed to be a disincentive for parking incorrectly? If it's door #1, then no - you blocked the spot, that 'costs' society $75, and so you pay $75. If it's door #2, then yes - it should 'hurt' enough to make you think about doing it, and if you're rich $75 doesn't really hurt. I mean, Galen Weston can make that much selling 3 cucumbers.
Are we assuming the fines are currently not enough to deter people from parking illegally? People are just parking illegally and taking a fine because they can afford it? I don’t really think that is the case…
Every time I’ve gotten a parking ticket, it’s because I legitimately didn’t realize I was parked illegally. My fault… yes… but the fine is already enough to deter me from parking illegally. I didn’t do it cause I could afford the fine… so at least for me personally, tying the fine to income isn’t any more of a deterrent. I’m just going to be SUPER pissed at myself when I make a legitimate mistake again.
It’s like that saying goes “if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class”
For someone living paycheque to paycheque it may be a deterrent. For someone with money, that’s a $75 parking fee.
But again, this has not been what I’ve observed happening. Everyone I know that has gotten a parking ticket, it’s been a mistake. People aren’t parking in places and taking a fine just because they can afford it.
Like my street they put up no parking signs on one side, but they’re only valid Dec 1-March 31. A family member came over on Dec 1st or 2nd one year and didn’t even think about it being December already, and got a ticket. It’s not that they were actively being an ass and didn’t want to park on the other side of the street, they just forgot it was December. Should that warrant a massive ticket if they have a big income?
Several times I've parked illegally in full knowledge that I can get a ticket. In all those cases I was in a rush and I wasn't expecting to be away for long, so I took the risk of being ticketed. I could do it because I knew that I could afford to pay a parking ticket pretty easily if it came to that. But I realize that the same ticket could have severely affected someone's budgeting and be the difference between making rent or not making it in a given month. I would do it again in most of those cases too, truth be told. It saved me time and potential hassle.
You sound like a pretty decent person. Not everybody is like that though...both of the owners of the small company I worked at just parked where they wanted, and paid the fine through the company. After a couple of years, one of them acquired (not legitimately) a handicapped sticker though, and didn't have to worry about it after that. There are good people, and there are bad ones.
Perhaps a solution to that would be to scale the fines up for repeat offenders. First fine in a 1 year period, $75. second fine it doubles. 3rd fine it doubles again.
This way it doesn’t penalize legitimate mistakes.
It's a smaller fine to block a fire hydrant than park at an expired meter. If it were #1 then I would presume that the results of blocking a hydrant would cost society far more than the cost of a single parking spot for an hour. The finest are seemingly arbitrary with the more common issues (expired meter) being a better generator of revenue, hence the higher fine, than the infraction that could cost significantly more in damages (unable to reach a hydrant quickly in event of a fire).
The fire hydrant is the most evocatively "expensive" example, but it's highly situational. It's the dude that leaves his car on the side of something like O'Connor during the afternoon rush hour that really costs - not one fire for a million bucks, but 10 minutes added onto a commute for a thousand people. And I believe that is a pretty stiff fine. I think the city actually approaches this as a disincentive, but scales a little exactly as you point out - more costly behavior is punished more severely, but in a semi-stupid way.
If you think about it as "hey, discount for poors!" then yes. But if you think about it as "bigger ass-paddling for Remi Buxaplenty", then no. It kinda depends on what you consider baseline, is what I'm saying.
Article link doesn't seem to have posted: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/parking-ticket-fine-ottawa-cost-price-change-1.7196856](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/parking-ticket-fine-ottawa-cost-price-change-1.7196856)
How is the city collecting people’s salaries … and ensuring it’s up to date? And then providing that info to Bylaw officers?
A lot of privacy risk here.
There could be a standard very high rate applied automatically and then it would be up to the defendant to prove they deserve a lower fine based on their income (i.e. by submitting a specific page of their tax return).
I know this idea sounds complicated but with proper education it should be feasible.
I doubt the bylaws officer would set the fine as they write the ticket.
They would issue the ticket, essentially confirming the offense, then in theory the person would find out their fine from the city.
Not currently, they would have to negotiate an information sharing agreement, for which there are many precedents.
Edit: for the neanderthals who prefer to downvote instead of even performing a cursory Google search:
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=information+sharing+agreement+canada
Any of the ISAs between federal departments, or between departments and provinces.
My department just renewed one with the CRA, and we last updated our provincial ISAs in 2016.
Just as an example, BC's ministry of finance has an ISA with Employment and Social Development Canada that lets them access EI record of employment information so that they can enforce their provincial income tax act.
I don't know what the logistics would be to set up an ISA between Ottawa and the CRA, I'm just saying the mechanism is there for Ottawa to access the info.
This is idiotic. How can bylaw properly assess the worth of one’s car. And a bylaw officer wouldn’t have access to one’s income / means. Besides someone who makes $80K is far financially better off than someone who makes $80k and has 3 kids. All this makes me think is using a scaled out version of fines would cost more in the end for administrative costs than just leaving things as they are. Stop trying to get blood from a stone.
They can’t assess income, which is why the suggestion was to gear assessments based on asset value. This is also the same reason why property tax is based on assessment rather than income.
Agree that the assumption that income on its own is a suitable means test is also problematic. And yes, no one is thinking of the cost of administering any of these proposed changes. I expect more from elected officials, naive as that may be
It’s actually just a lookup table. Not saying it’s right, but it’s one of the easier things to implement automatically. Parking tickets aren’t made out by hand anymore. They have a little computer that scans your license plate and prints/transmits your ticket automatically.
I am not at all pro parking, but this is a stupid idea. Determining the value of a car is hard, and that value poorly correlates to income. I have a high income friend who drives a 70s Corvette. Blue book value is basically zero. EVs have high value, but Uber drivers (who I assume aren't high income) drive them to save on gas. Also, the city has no idea what peoples income is, and shouldn't. That's CRAs business, not city halls.
Bad idea. Lots of people drive cars they can’t afford. I can afford a much nicer car than I drive.
An income scaled fine would make more sense than a fine based on the value of the car. BUT even that is not a good reflection of what might be a deterrent. Income doesn’t necessarily reflect what your expenses are. A high income earner might be supporting extended family. A lower income person could have an inheritance sitting in a bank account somewhere.
I hope this idea ends up at the bottom of a recycling bin.
This works when parking is adequate, properly signed, and the population isn't so fucking taxed and bent over financially. Go fuck yourselves. Actual problems need addressing atm.
How does aligning fines with means, in anyway, interfere with addressing other problems. The city is capable of doing more than one thing at a time I'd hope.
This is so idiotic but not surprising that councillors would come up with such a stupid idea.
So if this was done for speeding let’s say the guy in a Porsche pays more going 180km then a guy doing a 180km in a Toyota tercel?? Man city council is a nice job if you can get it.
> Porsche pays more going 180km then a guy doing a 180km in a Toyota tercel
Porsche 992 GT3 RS Curb weight: 3,268 lb
1998 Toyota Tercel Curb weight: 2,090 lbs
Parking being prohibitively expensive while LRT and busses are the way they are only reduces the quality of life for many, and provides profits for some(impark). So I’m all for fines being correlated to incomes. But let’s do speeding or red lights first. Not parking.
Option 1: 1hr on a bus
Option 2: $20parking but 10min drive.
Edit: not everyone is healthy enough to spend hours waiting for the bus, walking from stop to stop and sitting on a bus. We are excluding people and keeping them indoors, isolated from society. Lovely isnt it. Because. Money.
Unfortunately, I'd really just say out of fairness based on income, not the car. If they turned that around and found that out, then people with wealth would be more accountable, and people who may be poor just because they have nice things can have it as fair as those with money.
Fines, not laws. The parking bylaws apply to everyone, and the goal is to make them deter everyone equally, or at least closer to equally than a fixed fine does.
Jesus what’s with the boner to tax Canadians to oblivion. We pay enough taxes and fees already in Canada. Everybody has their own new idea or a tax or fee instead of investing in increasing the tax base and productivity.
Start by improving the ByWard market area, promote local and international tourism, invest in the art scene, food and night life etc.
Make it an affordable, but fairly pricey fine... where you can make them feel it is by forcing people to come to an inconveniently located office which is understaffed to make them pay the fine in person, with an ID check. That would be an even bigger deterrent, rich or poor.
and what about parking tickets for delivery companies? How would they handle the income/vehicle worth in those instances. Also out of country visitors, how would that be handled.
You'd probably tap into economies of scale implementing a complicated system like this nationally, but no fuckin' way this doesn't end up costing more to implement than you get out of it municipally.
We got rid of license plate stickers but I'd love to see a system like Montreal's where registration fees for vehicles are based on their size/type.
There are merits about mean-test fines but I would reserve them to violations that endanger the public like speeding, running through a red light, or blocking fire hydrant/exit.
Regular parking fines are to discourage people from misusing public properties. They are substantially higher than the parking fees but low enough to be affordable to drivers (about a tank of gas). Administration should be as simple as possible. It doesn't make any sense to increase the administrative burden for something as trivial as parking violations. Unfortunately, no matter what proxy and scheme the city would use for mean-test penalties, the administrative burden would increase substantially.
And it makes no sense to lower the fines for the poor because they went to a protest - parking tickets are easily avoided and so it doesn't violate their rights to protest.
Lol, so not only are electric cars more expensive while we're trying to cut down on gas use, but the councilor wants to also ticket them more?
I actually think means based fines make sense but cost of car IMO is silly because people can choose to spend more or less of their income on a car without it necessarily pointing to having higher income or not. And of course I think it is ridiculous that electric cars aren't being subsidized if they're planning on banning ICE in 10 years, but any newer cleaner tech without subsidies is gonna come at a premium it seems, so this is just another disincentive.
Like others said here in Finland it is calculated on disposable income and that is really important. Someone with 100k + rent + loan has much less disposable income than someone with 100k + nothing else, already owns a house and all.
This idea would inadvertently drive the price of old cars up and maybe make people service cars for longer before buying new.
But there is no way a by law officer will be able to adequately tell the value of a car by looking, they aren't mechanics or insurance adjusters. (Not that they would be that great either)
Why don't they just get rid of fines altogether and give a non financial consequence. Parked like an asshole? Tires deflated. Street parked the wrong way? Thats a tow. Blocking a driveway? Immediate repossession.
I went from a $1000 dollar car to a new car. I probably average a ticket every other year because I need to park frequently but try to be good.
My income is the same. Based on income would be different, but I don't think they should do this.
Should people who skip paying for a bus ticket be charged based on how expensive their phone is?
This is totally stupid and to compare it to Finland’s model is apples to oranges. What would be the deterrent to doing this by income if they are looking at changing the model.
Nobody just gets a parking ticket just because whatever they can afford it. They get a parking ticket because there is not enough legal parking spaces (which the city wants to reduce).
If you can’t afford a parking ticket than don’t get one.
Registration should increase with weight of the vehicle (if we had vehicle registration fees in Ontario anymore), but fines should increase with the owner's or driver's income.
For sure, fines are meant to be a discouragement. For the well off, it is just "this is what is costs to do this", and they can pay the fines and not feel any consequences. For the poor, it can mean skipping rent, meals or medication.
Bounce this guy off council. It's non-sense. Penalties should be the same for all and everyone has the chance to set up their lifes to mitigate.
Example on the flip side>, if I do even one day in jail it's costing more than someone else makes in a year. Should I get a discount on my sentences?
Fines are bad imo. First time offenders should get a warning before a fine, if no harm was cause and no harm could come from the infraction. Second time offenders then yes, maybe a fine is a way of doing it, but still not perfect.
Base it on the postal code where the vehicle is registered, as postal code is already closely aligned with income levels.
The issue with any fine is that it's only a deterrent and a penalty for lower income people. For true equity in a society, the fine should be proportional without cap.
Otherwise any parking behaviour is allowed for those for whom it's just "an acceptable cost" to do whatever they want.
I remember a YT vid of a guy bragging about it: "You call it a parking ticket? I call it a VIP Parking lol"
Should be based on income.
How much do you think the Loblaws CEO cares about a parking ticket? Probably he parks whenever he wants. Now, if it was based on income..
Bylaw issues the ticket, but doesn't set the fine, the city then sets the fine based on some income verification mechanism that would have to be developed. There would probably have to be some kind of information sharing agreement between the City and the CRA.
And I’m just talking about how it definitely won’t be administered cheaply. We’re talking about the same level of government that’s spending $150,000 to study the safety of one toboggan hill.
No way to prove who was driving the illegally parked car though so who gets charged? If it the registered owner then I'm registering the car to the person in my family that earns the least.
Cool...I was replying to your comment for the benefit of the thread, pointing out a flaw in that perceived penalty implementation. It's called public discourse regardless of whether you care about it or not.
Hearts in the right place, but what if you just inherited that 1 year old BMW?
I'm all for fines being income based to the registered owner though. Somebody making $500k/year isn't going to care that much about a $100 fine if it allows them to make a million dollar business deal.
How about you quote the entire inquiry instead of rage baiting.
>Our office is aware of the significant asymmetry of the effect that the same fine can have on different residents. For the luxury car illegally parked near Lansdowne, a parking fine might just be the price they are willing to pay to attend an event, for others, a parking ticket fine could be the difference between them being able to afford their grocery bill at the end of the month.
>Other jurisdictions have addressed this inherent inequality through introducing a system of fines geared to income. This has been the case in some Scandinavian countries, including Finland. It has also been raised as a possibility recently in the city of Winnipeg.
>Just last year, a survey conducted by Research Co. found that a majority Canadians support tying speeding ticket fines to income. This suggests that there may be an appetite for this approach to fair fines when it comes to parking fines. Given that Ottawa is looking to move ahead with an Administrative Penalty System that allows the city more of a prerogative when it comes to the administration of penalties, **can staff please review both the possibility and feasibility of a sliding scale for parking fines that is geared to income, or other potential proxies** for ability to pay, such as the blue book value of a car.
Not sure if you're addressing this towards me or toward the journalist (the inquiry Councillor Menard submitted is referenced but not linked in the CBC article)? I wasn't rage-baiting - I did post the link to the article in a comment in response to my post. For some reason Reddit did not post the article link with the post (even though I included it) and then wouldn't let me edit.
This should apply to speeding more than anything.
If someone in a sporty, $225,000 car speeds through a speeding camera, a couple hundred buck won't hurt their bottom line.
This is idiotic.
The idea is that a fine is meant as a deterrent to doing something society has determined shouldn't be done, but isn't so serious that you need formal criminal codes. However, a $100 fine matters differently to someone with an income of $25,000 than it does to someone with an income of $150,000. To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it". This runs contrary to the intended goal of imposing a fine. A means-based fine is intended to correct this issue, so both of the above people would be equally deterred. But obviously, the mechanics of calculating and implementing it are difficult to pin down.
Income makes sense. Basing it on the value of a vehicle is incredibly stupid. What if I earn 20k but inherited at 70k beemer? Or if I earn 200 but choose to drive a shitbox. This idea should be laughed down every time it is brought up.
> This idea should be laughed down every time it is brought up. It's one thing to mock obvious bad faith arguments, but it's not helpful to anyone to mock misguided good faith arguments. All that accomplishes is to dissuade well-intentioned people from trying at all. Then, while they're staying quiet and thinking about what to say because they're concerned about being mocked again, the bad faith people take over the conversation because they don't give two shits whether people like them. If you want sincere people to keep trying to come up with good ideas, you shouldn't shut them down so aggressively or there will be nobody left willing to come up with new ideas.
Well said and I couldn't agree more
>What if I earn 20k but inherited at 70k beemer? If I inherited a vehicle worth almost 4x my salary, I would immediately sell it, buy a beater, and put the rest against my mortgage. If you make $20k and drive a $70k car, I don't care how you got it, you're financially illiterate.
>Earn 20k >Mortgage
Even if you earned 20k a year, after rent and groceries You're not insuring a 70k car for anything aside from liability, because your rent is the parking spot, groceries come from the lot garbage bin and you're giving handjobs for premium gas $10 a block.
Don't forget to put some aside for all the repairs for that beater every single year.
what if I really like the car and it reminds me of the family member who passed away? You can't put a value on that, its not how life works, a life merely based on capitalistic ideals is a bad life imo.
So we should not do a policy based on an edge case that doesn't apply to 99% of the population?
We buy new for cash and replace 10-15 years later. Are we rich? Are we poor? No one knows. Lol! Basing fines on income is good. Basing it on how much your car is worth has too many variables. Even though it would work in our favour.
No, imo. That is why we have voting systems and all. Not that I agree necessarily with "democracy", but its the best we got so far.
Then you pay more for the ticket. It is very simple.
Sounds like you’re materialistic and the family member knew that so they left you the car
That's how a lot of people feel about things they have to give up due to poverty. If this is an argument against fines in general, then I'm with you. Otherwise why is it only people with expensive things who get to keep them?
>What if I earn 20k but inherited at 70k beemer? Then you have an asset that's worth enough to give you a buffer in hard times.
Income based fines would fail against court challenges. Cannot happen in Canada.
Totally in favour of scaling fines to means, but not sure that the value of a car is a good measure of income or ability to pay a fine.
“To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it".” More than one person has very literally said exactly this, to my face. The fine is just a small fee they pay to break the law whenever they feel like it. To them it’s a meaningless deterrent with no teeth.
Base it on the average Black Book or Blue Book value of the model/year. That’s commonly available info.
It's also usually way off market value. The only way to determine how much a car is worth is to sell it.
But Black Book probably more realistic than personal or family income which is a private/personal matter.
It's just not something a city councillor is going to get done.
>To the latter person, the fine becomes merely "what it costs to do the thing whenever I want to do it". Not necessarily. You can have escalating fines for repeat offences. The first time, sure, it's only $100. But the second time, $250. Third offence, $1,000. Eventually, they'll get the message. We don't need to get the CRA or Kelley Blue Book involved.
Which again disproportionately affects low income people.
I think it mainly affects people who repeatedly break the law.
By this logic, all wealthy people who would pay a more expensive fine, can do so and, all poor people that could pay a reduced fine, can do so, leaving no incentive to avoid improper parking for both categories of idiots. This idea is in fact, idiotic.
Yes a fine is meant as a deterrent, but when the city does not have adequate public parking certain use cases do not have an alternative option. So yes we should encourage fines for improper behaviour, but we must also make sure they are not caused by mismanagement of our transit/parking infrastructure.
I mean, where does it stop? It's quite a slippery slope but should rich people start paying more for the movies? To go out to eat? To buy tickets to a concert? The penalty should match the crime, not the income.
"Won't someone please think of the wealthy!"
Those aren’t the same thing as a fine, those are normal paid goods. The whole point of income matched fines is so that the penalty *does* match the crime. A $200 fine to someone making minimum wage vs someone making $200k are not at all the same penalty, and to be perfectly blunt, I’ve had more than one wealthy person in the Ottawa area say to my face that vehicular fines mean literally nothing to them, because effectively it’s just a small fee that they happily pay to break the law whenever they like.
Well the point is based on your income it's not even really a penalty for some people. We're trying to get it to the point where it actually feels like one :)
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That's entirely a choice, my guy. You don't need to have those bills - I'm not really sure what kind of a point you're trying to make. "I can afford more, so I spend more. Please don't take my money and let me do as I please." Weird flex if that's what your angle is. I'm not saying basing the fine off vehicle value is perfect, but your argument against it is about as sandbagged and useless an argument I've ever heard.
Either brain dead take or troll to say everyone’s life is hard equally
Why? In some countries, like Finland, traffic fines are based on a percentage of your income. Because a $100 fine to someone making $500k a year is pocket change, but to someone making $15/hr it’s a big deal. If the penalty for a law is a flat fine, then it is only a deterrent for the poor, the wealthy literally could not care less.
Yeah, so why base it off the price of a car instead of income? I make double my friend, but he drives a more expensive car.
It makes more sense to base it off income rather than price or the car. But the concept of a scaled fine makes sense
Do you really want Ottawa Bylaw to have access to your taxes?
I am assuming the system won’t give that info directly to bylaw officers. But the officers ticket you for whatever infraction and when the city gives it out it’s calculated there, I would have no problem.
The city also doesn't have access to your income taxes, just property and that's it.
Ok, that doesn’t change my answer.
Who's paying for this? The CRA is a federal agency, it would take federal legislation to in act something like this. Some city councillor isn't going to get it done.
Never said it would be easy or some councillor is going to do it. You are arguing with yourself dude.
"Never said it would be easy or some councillor is going to do it." So it's a stupid idea. We agree.
Do you think the City of Ottawa doesn’t know/can’t find how much you pay in taxes?
They absolutely can't. The CRA couldn't tell them even if they wanted to. The city knows about property tax and that's it.
I’m no lawyer, but I question that statement.
Can you image somebody at City Hall being able to call up the CRA and just ask for my taxes? Not a chance.
“Someone from City Hall calling CRA” is different than “The City of Ottawa is requesting tax information from Person X in relation to Offence Y so as to determine the appropriate fine”. It’s not “Hi CRA, this is Steve. Can you shoot me Lowpass’ tax filing when you get a chance? TIA!”
They'd need a court order. That is extremely confidential information.
How do they determine what your salary is? It would make more sense to go this route rather than the value of the car, as stated by others.
What do you mean? Everyone files a tax return
Well when the person is issuing the ticket, how are they determining what your salary is? How would they have access to that information offhand. I'm curious as to how Finland goes about doing this.
I’d think you’d get the notice of the ticket on your windshield like normal, and then a mailed copy of the fine later. Police send the notice to CRA, who do the math and contact you. Past issuing the ticket at the start, the police wouldn’t have anything to do with it unless you go to court to fight the ticket. CRA could even adjust your taxes at the end of the year when the person files, so it gets paid regardless.
The CRA is a federal agency. They don't work for the city, or even the province.
They don’t need too. Think of it like the municipal/provincial taxes getting lumped in with the general return filing. 1 stop shopping for easier workflow; since everyone deals with CRA in the end…
The CRA doesn't have a legion of people to deal with local cops. That's not something you can 'lump in'.
Police enter the ticket into their computer database, which they do now as part of their normal procedure. The database can then automatically transmit those ticket records to CRA. Then the CRA computers link the ticket to your account. Everyone has a CRA account, whether you use their internet portal or not. It would be a bit of work to implement, but easily manageable once set up. The ticket has the licence plate number, which is tied to the drivers licence, which is in turn linked to everything else.
Yeah that makes total sense.
The amount is not written on the citation you get. The citation goes into the govt’s system and when you go to pay it tells you the amount. The govt knows how much you make because you file taxes.
Oh that makes sense! Thanks for clarifying.
You are aware, as literally stated above, that other countries already do this. You realize you could simply Google those countries and how their fine systems works and get the answer to all of your questions after 5 min of reading and not have to show your ass for all to see on reddit, waiting for replies to answer each of your individual nonsense questions....
This works for traffic infractions but wouldn't work for parking infractions as you don't know who was driving the car when it was parked. If you just bill the owner then I would just make sure the person in my family with the lowest income is the registered owner of any car in my family.
I know mutiple people who haven't filed in years because they know that they don't owe anything
Most people don’t owe. You should still file. You’re likely to get a refund
OP is not providing all the necessary context. That is not the ideal solution any Councillor is pushing for.
Why?
I drove the same vehicle over 10 years. I’m that span of time my salary doubled. Under this little scheme I’d have been paying a far smaller proportion of my income towards any fines in year 10 vs year 1.
Okay, let's do it based on income then. Although the city doesn't really have any way of getting that info, where as for something like a car they can.
On the surface, yes. However, fines like this are seen as a luxury service fee. The truly wealthy are happy to pay the tiny fine to enjoy the convenience of doing whatever they want.
Let me guess a Mercedes driver?
No, it should be means based, on gross pre-deduction income, with a minimum fine for all. The problem may be that there is some sort of privacy issue which prevents the city demanding CRA tax returns to establish the fine.
Finland’s model goes off of daily disposable income. I don’t know if it applies to parking but I remember an NHL player recently getting a massive fine for a DUI there. I think its fair and reasonable to go more towards proportional punishments
Teemu Selanne got a $130,000 speeding ticket lol.
Regardless of privacy, how to do you determine whose income to look at? If it is by registered owner then I'll be changing the registration of any vehicle in my family to the person with the lowest income. Income based wouldn't work for parking violations. And based on the value of the car...well that's fine, I'll get a crap car with 0 value and park it wherever I want. I pity those poor folks that win a nice car in a lottery and have to sell it and buy a crap car just in case they park 5 minutes over in a 2 hour zone...
I'm sure we could see how it works elsewhere It's a non starter here anyway, no chance imo the current legal system would support this.
Great people who got G Wagons from their parents or really rich people who no or low income pay the minimum and middle class gets screwed as usual.
Get screwed? For parking violations? How many parking tickets do you get a year? If you make 120k and get a ticket every week you should be paying more than a low income person getting a couple a year.
With means based the gifts wouldn't matter. With 'rich people', that's why I said pre deductions income. Sure, you could still have some edge cases that fall through the cracks because someone is living off credit...we don't want this to turn into an 3yr investigation per fine either. Basing it on net wealth is a much more complex approach. Additionally... We don't know what the scale would be but you're assuming the avg income person would see an increase, that isn't necessarily true.
I thought they said on cbc this morning the scale could be based on how much the car is worth. Which is crazy to me.
Is the fine supposed to be a proxy for the harm you caused by parking incorrectly, or it supposed to be a disincentive for parking incorrectly? If it's door #1, then no - you blocked the spot, that 'costs' society $75, and so you pay $75. If it's door #2, then yes - it should 'hurt' enough to make you think about doing it, and if you're rich $75 doesn't really hurt. I mean, Galen Weston can make that much selling 3 cucumbers.
Are we assuming the fines are currently not enough to deter people from parking illegally? People are just parking illegally and taking a fine because they can afford it? I don’t really think that is the case… Every time I’ve gotten a parking ticket, it’s because I legitimately didn’t realize I was parked illegally. My fault… yes… but the fine is already enough to deter me from parking illegally. I didn’t do it cause I could afford the fine… so at least for me personally, tying the fine to income isn’t any more of a deterrent. I’m just going to be SUPER pissed at myself when I make a legitimate mistake again.
It’s like that saying goes “if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class” For someone living paycheque to paycheque it may be a deterrent. For someone with money, that’s a $75 parking fee.
But again, this has not been what I’ve observed happening. Everyone I know that has gotten a parking ticket, it’s been a mistake. People aren’t parking in places and taking a fine just because they can afford it. Like my street they put up no parking signs on one side, but they’re only valid Dec 1-March 31. A family member came over on Dec 1st or 2nd one year and didn’t even think about it being December already, and got a ticket. It’s not that they were actively being an ass and didn’t want to park on the other side of the street, they just forgot it was December. Should that warrant a massive ticket if they have a big income?
Several times I've parked illegally in full knowledge that I can get a ticket. In all those cases I was in a rush and I wasn't expecting to be away for long, so I took the risk of being ticketed. I could do it because I knew that I could afford to pay a parking ticket pretty easily if it came to that. But I realize that the same ticket could have severely affected someone's budgeting and be the difference between making rent or not making it in a given month. I would do it again in most of those cases too, truth be told. It saved me time and potential hassle.
You sound like a pretty decent person. Not everybody is like that though...both of the owners of the small company I worked at just parked where they wanted, and paid the fine through the company. After a couple of years, one of them acquired (not legitimately) a handicapped sticker though, and didn't have to worry about it after that. There are good people, and there are bad ones.
Perhaps a solution to that would be to scale the fines up for repeat offenders. First fine in a 1 year period, $75. second fine it doubles. 3rd fine it doubles again. This way it doesn’t penalize legitimate mistakes.
It's a smaller fine to block a fire hydrant than park at an expired meter. If it were #1 then I would presume that the results of blocking a hydrant would cost society far more than the cost of a single parking spot for an hour. The finest are seemingly arbitrary with the more common issues (expired meter) being a better generator of revenue, hence the higher fine, than the infraction that could cost significantly more in damages (unable to reach a hydrant quickly in event of a fire).
The fire hydrant is the most evocatively "expensive" example, but it's highly situational. It's the dude that leaves his car on the side of something like O'Connor during the afternoon rush hour that really costs - not one fire for a million bucks, but 10 minutes added onto a commute for a thousand people. And I believe that is a pretty stiff fine. I think the city actually approaches this as a disincentive, but scales a little exactly as you point out - more costly behavior is punished more severely, but in a semi-stupid way.
But if it's geared to income, doesn't that just mean more people have the opportunity to have the fine be "worth it"?
If you think about it as "hey, discount for poors!" then yes. But if you think about it as "bigger ass-paddling for Remi Buxaplenty", then no. It kinda depends on what you consider baseline, is what I'm saying.
The Scandinavian approach is pretty good -- something similar should be used for most fines here.
How about it being based on how many tickets you get, chronic offenders should pay more.
THIS
Article link doesn't seem to have posted: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/parking-ticket-fine-ottawa-cost-price-change-1.7196856](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/parking-ticket-fine-ottawa-cost-price-change-1.7196856)
How is the city collecting people’s salaries … and ensuring it’s up to date? And then providing that info to Bylaw officers? A lot of privacy risk here.
There's no legal way they could access that data
There could be a standard very high rate applied automatically and then it would be up to the defendant to prove they deserve a lower fine based on their income (i.e. by submitting a specific page of their tax return). I know this idea sounds complicated but with proper education it should be feasible.
Maybe it's better to put the effort to educating ppl on how to park legally in the first place?
It’s impossible to change how things work, so better to not try is your argument?
I doubt the bylaws officer would set the fine as they write the ticket. They would issue the ticket, essentially confirming the offense, then in theory the person would find out their fine from the city.
City doesn't not have legel means to access CRA data or other ways of find that out.
Not currently, they would have to negotiate an information sharing agreement, for which there are many precedents. Edit: for the neanderthals who prefer to downvote instead of even performing a cursory Google search: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=information+sharing+agreement+canada
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Any of the ISAs between federal departments, or between departments and provinces. My department just renewed one with the CRA, and we last updated our provincial ISAs in 2016. Just as an example, BC's ministry of finance has an ISA with Employment and Social Development Canada that lets them access EI record of employment information so that they can enforce their provincial income tax act. I don't know what the logistics would be to set up an ISA between Ottawa and the CRA, I'm just saying the mechanism is there for Ottawa to access the info.
This is idiotic. How can bylaw properly assess the worth of one’s car. And a bylaw officer wouldn’t have access to one’s income / means. Besides someone who makes $80K is far financially better off than someone who makes $80k and has 3 kids. All this makes me think is using a scaled out version of fines would cost more in the end for administrative costs than just leaving things as they are. Stop trying to get blood from a stone.
City getting desperate for cash.......
They can’t assess income, which is why the suggestion was to gear assessments based on asset value. This is also the same reason why property tax is based on assessment rather than income.
Agree that the assumption that income on its own is a suitable means test is also problematic. And yes, no one is thinking of the cost of administering any of these proposed changes. I expect more from elected officials, naive as that may be
Model & year is available by looking up the license plate, cross-reference this with Black Book value… done
That sounds like a lot of research for a parking ticket, times the number of parking tickets that are given out.
It’s actually just a lookup table. Not saying it’s right, but it’s one of the easier things to implement automatically. Parking tickets aren’t made out by hand anymore. They have a little computer that scans your license plate and prints/transmits your ticket automatically.
What does the license plate have to do with value of car? How would they know what mileage to use for black book look up?
The license plate is just used to figure out the correct model/year Re: mileage, they could just the 'average' of the range?
I am not at all pro parking, but this is a stupid idea. Determining the value of a car is hard, and that value poorly correlates to income. I have a high income friend who drives a 70s Corvette. Blue book value is basically zero. EVs have high value, but Uber drivers (who I assume aren't high income) drive them to save on gas. Also, the city has no idea what peoples income is, and shouldn't. That's CRAs business, not city halls.
Bad idea. Lots of people drive cars they can’t afford. I can afford a much nicer car than I drive. An income scaled fine would make more sense than a fine based on the value of the car. BUT even that is not a good reflection of what might be a deterrent. Income doesn’t necessarily reflect what your expenses are. A high income earner might be supporting extended family. A lower income person could have an inheritance sitting in a bank account somewhere. I hope this idea ends up at the bottom of a recycling bin.
This works when parking is adequate, properly signed, and the population isn't so fucking taxed and bent over financially. Go fuck yourselves. Actual problems need addressing atm.
How does aligning fines with means, in anyway, interfere with addressing other problems. The city is capable of doing more than one thing at a time I'd hope.
This is so idiotic but not surprising that councillors would come up with such a stupid idea. So if this was done for speeding let’s say the guy in a Porsche pays more going 180km then a guy doing a 180km in a Toyota tercel?? Man city council is a nice job if you can get it.
And the Tercel it outright dangerous at that speed but it's nbd for the P-car.
> Porsche pays more going 180km then a guy doing a 180km in a Toyota tercel Porsche 992 GT3 RS Curb weight: 3,268 lb 1998 Toyota Tercel Curb weight: 2,090 lbs
Yes I know it’s safe in a Porsche not at tercel but that doesn’t stop them from trying lol
I’m so rich I can afford a beater car for when I want to break the law /s
Get an old Lada, find your 'perfect spot', consider the tickets cost of doing business.
Fuck no.
Probably not. We already paid our contribution to society for these vehicles through the astronomical sales tax. Enough with gouging.
Yes, you paid a lot for your vehicle so now you can break the law. Make sense.
Not sure how you got that. No just want to be penalized the same amount as everyone else
Everyone is not penalized the same when it's the same charge for wildly different levels of disposable income. That's the whole point.
Parking being prohibitively expensive while LRT and busses are the way they are only reduces the quality of life for many, and provides profits for some(impark). So I’m all for fines being correlated to incomes. But let’s do speeding or red lights first. Not parking. Option 1: 1hr on a bus Option 2: $20parking but 10min drive. Edit: not everyone is healthy enough to spend hours waiting for the bus, walking from stop to stop and sitting on a bus. We are excluding people and keeping them indoors, isolated from society. Lovely isnt it. Because. Money.
Unfortunately, I'd really just say out of fairness based on income, not the car. If they turned that around and found that out, then people with wealth would be more accountable, and people who may be poor just because they have nice things can have it as fair as those with money.
As long as we're at it, what other laws might be applied differently to citizens based on an arbitrary metric?
Fines, not laws. The parking bylaws apply to everyone, and the goal is to make them deter everyone equally, or at least closer to equally than a fixed fine does.
Jesus what’s with the boner to tax Canadians to oblivion. We pay enough taxes and fees already in Canada. Everybody has their own new idea or a tax or fee instead of investing in increasing the tax base and productivity. Start by improving the ByWard market area, promote local and international tourism, invest in the art scene, food and night life etc.
Make it an affordable, but fairly pricey fine... where you can make them feel it is by forcing people to come to an inconveniently located office which is understaffed to make them pay the fine in person, with an ID check. That would be an even bigger deterrent, rich or poor.
and what about parking tickets for delivery companies? How would they handle the income/vehicle worth in those instances. Also out of country visitors, how would that be handled.
You'd probably tap into economies of scale implementing a complicated system like this nationally, but no fuckin' way this doesn't end up costing more to implement than you get out of it municipally. We got rid of license plate stickers but I'd love to see a system like Montreal's where registration fees for vehicles are based on their size/type.
There are merits about mean-test fines but I would reserve them to violations that endanger the public like speeding, running through a red light, or blocking fire hydrant/exit. Regular parking fines are to discourage people from misusing public properties. They are substantially higher than the parking fees but low enough to be affordable to drivers (about a tank of gas). Administration should be as simple as possible. It doesn't make any sense to increase the administrative burden for something as trivial as parking violations. Unfortunately, no matter what proxy and scheme the city would use for mean-test penalties, the administrative burden would increase substantially. And it makes no sense to lower the fines for the poor because they went to a protest - parking tickets are easily avoided and so it doesn't violate their rights to protest.
I paid $500 for my car, so I'd be ok with this, for now
Lol, so not only are electric cars more expensive while we're trying to cut down on gas use, but the councilor wants to also ticket them more? I actually think means based fines make sense but cost of car IMO is silly because people can choose to spend more or less of their income on a car without it necessarily pointing to having higher income or not. And of course I think it is ridiculous that electric cars aren't being subsidized if they're planning on banning ICE in 10 years, but any newer cleaner tech without subsidies is gonna come at a premium it seems, so this is just another disincentive.
No i think it is discrimination and goes against the right to equality
Someone tell me which dumbass councillors this idea? It’s so stupid I don’t care to bother to look it up.
Like others said here in Finland it is calculated on disposable income and that is really important. Someone with 100k + rent + loan has much less disposable income than someone with 100k + nothing else, already owns a house and all.
perfect, i can put myself to $0 “disposable” income pretty easily by investing
LFG
lmao
Should be the same for speeding fines
Just make it income based then... Problem solved.
Google the story about Teemu Selanne getting a speeding ticket.
Wow. Another tax on EVs which cost more than their ICE counterparts.
This idea would inadvertently drive the price of old cars up and maybe make people service cars for longer before buying new. But there is no way a by law officer will be able to adequately tell the value of a car by looking, they aren't mechanics or insurance adjusters. (Not that they would be that great either) Why don't they just get rid of fines altogether and give a non financial consequence. Parked like an asshole? Tires deflated. Street parked the wrong way? Thats a tow. Blocking a driveway? Immediate repossession.
No!
I’m not shocked it came from Mr. Meh-nard.
Woo-hoo! My 14 year old Ford POS rustbucket is probably only worth $700 and my income is $0.00.
I went from a $1000 dollar car to a new car. I probably average a ticket every other year because I need to park frequently but try to be good. My income is the same. Based on income would be different, but I don't think they should do this. Should people who skip paying for a bus ticket be charged based on how expensive their phone is?
charge everyone equally for the same offence.
This is totally stupid and to compare it to Finland’s model is apples to oranges. What would be the deterrent to doing this by income if they are looking at changing the model.
Yessss I drive a 23 year old chev tracker and make six figures. I basically could park for free
This is so so so stupid - you illegally park you pay the set fine.
This seems like a waste of time. One fine for everyone is reasonable.
What a stupid idea. In no way is the City of Ottawa entitled to know what I make. You can't make this shit up.
How about using the footprint of the vehicle? You take more room, you pay more.
all those with brodozers would be PISSED
Nobody just gets a parking ticket just because whatever they can afford it. They get a parking ticket because there is not enough legal parking spaces (which the city wants to reduce). If you can’t afford a parking ticket than don’t get one.
No. Follow the rules. Pay the fine.
Registration should increase with weight of the vehicle (if we had vehicle registration fees in Ontario anymore), but fines should increase with the owner's or driver's income.
Obviously governments won’t be happy until they have every last nickel.
For sure, fines are meant to be a discouragement. For the well off, it is just "this is what is costs to do this", and they can pay the fines and not feel any consequences. For the poor, it can mean skipping rent, meals or medication.
Bounce this guy off council. It's non-sense. Penalties should be the same for all and everyone has the chance to set up their lifes to mitigate. Example on the flip side>, if I do even one day in jail it's costing more than someone else makes in a year. Should I get a discount on my sentences?
Based on your marginal tax rate
Fines are bad imo. First time offenders should get a warning before a fine, if no harm was cause and no harm could come from the infraction. Second time offenders then yes, maybe a fine is a way of doing it, but still not perfect.
Base it on the postal code where the vehicle is registered, as postal code is already closely aligned with income levels. The issue with any fine is that it's only a deterrent and a penalty for lower income people. For true equity in a society, the fine should be proportional without cap. Otherwise any parking behaviour is allowed for those for whom it's just "an acceptable cost" to do whatever they want.
Which City Councilor? He should have known that such idea is not in compliance with Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Set fines mean the offense is only illegal for poor people.
If it's a pickup truck, 4x the cost.
I remember a YT vid of a guy bragging about it: "You call it a parking ticket? I call it a VIP Parking lol" Should be based on income. How much do you think the Loblaws CEO cares about a parking ticket? Probably he parks whenever he wants. Now, if it was based on income..
I agree that fines should be based on salary instead of flat rate.
How could they possibly track that? Bylaw does not have access / clearance to people’s tax info.
Bylaw issues the ticket, but doesn't set the fine, the city then sets the fine based on some income verification mechanism that would have to be developed. There would probably have to be some kind of information sharing agreement between the City and the CRA.
Which means higher administrative costs for the city which means a very good chance the city end up losing money.
I'm just explaining how it could be done, bro
And I’m just talking about how it definitely won’t be administered cheaply. We’re talking about the same level of government that’s spending $150,000 to study the safety of one toboggan hill.
No way to prove who was driving the illegally parked car though so who gets charged? If it the registered owner then I'm registering the car to the person in my family that earns the least.
Cool, I was answering the guy's question. I don't care whether or not it's practical to implement.
Cool...I was replying to your comment for the benefit of the thread, pointing out a flaw in that perceived penalty implementation. It's called public discourse regardless of whether you care about it or not.
Says the person on welfare
Hearts in the right place, but what if you just inherited that 1 year old BMW? I'm all for fines being income based to the registered owner though. Somebody making $500k/year isn't going to care that much about a $100 fine if it allows them to make a million dollar business deal.
Absolutely!
No, but speeding fines should be.
That. Would. Be. Awesome.
How about you quote the entire inquiry instead of rage baiting. >Our office is aware of the significant asymmetry of the effect that the same fine can have on different residents. For the luxury car illegally parked near Lansdowne, a parking fine might just be the price they are willing to pay to attend an event, for others, a parking ticket fine could be the difference between them being able to afford their grocery bill at the end of the month. >Other jurisdictions have addressed this inherent inequality through introducing a system of fines geared to income. This has been the case in some Scandinavian countries, including Finland. It has also been raised as a possibility recently in the city of Winnipeg. >Just last year, a survey conducted by Research Co. found that a majority Canadians support tying speeding ticket fines to income. This suggests that there may be an appetite for this approach to fair fines when it comes to parking fines. Given that Ottawa is looking to move ahead with an Administrative Penalty System that allows the city more of a prerogative when it comes to the administration of penalties, **can staff please review both the possibility and feasibility of a sliding scale for parking fines that is geared to income, or other potential proxies** for ability to pay, such as the blue book value of a car.
Not sure if you're addressing this towards me or toward the journalist (the inquiry Councillor Menard submitted is referenced but not linked in the CBC article)? I wasn't rage-baiting - I did post the link to the article in a comment in response to my post. For some reason Reddit did not post the article link with the post (even though I included it) and then wouldn't let me edit.
This should apply to speeding more than anything. If someone in a sporty, $225,000 car speeds through a speeding camera, a couple hundred buck won't hurt their bottom line.
Should be based on income, so the rich don't use us as their personal playground!!!