Expired Ontario plates don’t sit well in Quebec
Woman fined $490 despite home province’s pandemic reprieve
When Lois Lewis, 69, scheduled a four-day summer getaway to Ottawa, she didn’t plan for a $490 ticket to be part of the itinerary.
Besides seeing the Ironwood Quartet and journeying on a day-cruise, the “creme de la creme” for Lois and her three friends was their short trip to Chelsea, Que., to visit Nordik Spa-Nature — a little more than 10 kilometres across the provincial border.
“We had looked forward to it for so long,” Lois said of her July 28 spa visit.
More than two months after the vacation ended, 73-year-old Terry Lewis, Lois’ husband, received a Statement of Offence in the mail at their Toronto home from the Municipal Court of Chelsea. Inside was an almost $500 ticket for having an expired Ontario licence plate sticker — even though Ontario had granted a reprieve for renewals due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(The offence was addressed to Terry because the car Lois took to Quebec is in his name.)
“I was just so disappointed. Our day at the spa was expensive enough,” Lois said, noting her friend who was also on the trip and lives in Ottawa got the same offence in the mail.
Ontario has extended the renewal deadline for licence plate stickers through February 2022. And although the Chelsea-area police department acknowledged receiving a notice from Ontario on the reprieve, experts warn Ontarians shouldn’t assume the extension will be recognized when they cross the border into Quebec.
The Lewises, who are pleading not guilty to the ticket, wanted to share their story to warn other Ontarians of the risk of crossing the border with expired stickers, as not only do they have a hefty fine on their hands, but they say they’ve also been told they must appear in person in Quebec to fight the charge.
“I can only imagine if this happened to me and my other friend from Ottawa who joined us, it must have happened to a lot of people that day,” Lois said, noting the spa parking lot was packed that day in July.
Because Lois was not pulled over by a police officer while in Quebec at the spa, she was oblivious to the charge until her husband told her of the notice in the mail.
“It seems like low-hanging fruit that they’re out trying to find this,” Terry said. “They’re not sitting on the side of the road and pulling people over, they’re going through a parking lot and just ticketing cars that are sitting there.”
Terry called the court in Chelsea the same day he got the offence to explain Ontario’s reprieve but despite the sticker still being valid in his home province, the court office said the charge stands.
The Lewises say they have filed a not guilty plea and were told they’ll have to travel back to Chelsea to attend an in-person hearing, once a date is chosen.
Despite what the Lewises were told, Sgt. Dominic Robitaille, with MRC des Collinesde l’Outaouais police, the department that issued the ticket, said the municipal court is doing some hearings over video. He noted most tickets from Quebec are sent in the mail because officers are only allowed to place fines on a car when it’s a parking ticket.
“That’s why people leave and unfortunately they receive their surprise by mail,” he said.
In May of last year, the department received a memo from
Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation detailing the reprieve, Robitaille said, adding the additional extensions put forward since then have made it hard for officers to keep up with.
“Sometimes it’s difficult for the police officer on the road to be sure the extension is on or not,” he said, noting the Municipal Court of Chelsea is unable to comment on the matter.
The reprieve has been in place since March 2020. When Ontario entered Step 1 of reopening in June of this year, the province continued the open-ended extension, and then at the beginning of this month announced a deadline of Feb. 28, 2022, for citizens to have their stickers renewed.
Although a spokesperson from the Ministry of Transportation confirmed the extensions have been communicated to North American transportation and law enforcement partners, they said the ministry couldn’t comment on how its driver and vehicle products would be treated outside Ontario jurisdiction.
“If you are travelling outside of Ontario, we encourage you to renew your driver’s licence and licence plate sticker before leaving,” the spokesperson said.
Erick Laming, an assistant professor of Criminology at Trent University in Peterborough, said police in Quebec are known for doing sweeps in parking lots and with Quebec plates not having stickers, Ontario cars are “easy targets.”
“I’m not saying the police are targeting, I’m saying it’s something that’s abnormal in Quebec,” Laming said. Even though Quebec authorities were made aware of Ontario’s reprieve, “it doesn’t really mean anything because Quebec is its own jurisdiction,” he added.
Although the ticket is an unfortunate hassle for the Lewises, it’s “problematic” to assume that Ontario’s reprieves also apply across the border, according to Trevor Farrow, a York University professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School. However, this case does highlight another problem with justice systems within Canada, he said.
With relentless health recommendations to be cautious about travel, Farrow finds it “ironic” that defendants are being asked to venture hundreds of kilometres interprovincially to attend a hearing.
“Put simply, we’ve now had lots of experience doing court by Zoom and these are the kinds of cases where, if a couple wants to plead not guilty to a highway traffic act ticket, my view is they should not have to travel hundreds of kilometres to show up and defend that ticket when we’ve seen remote hearings working perfectly well,” he said.
Lois is now urging other Ontarians not to travel across the Quebec border, unless they’ve renewed their stickers. She’s ready to go to Chelsea to face the court with her husband.
“I’m very hopeful it will disappear,” she said. “We will go to Chelsea to make an appearance.”
“They’re not sitting on the side of the road and pulling people over, they’re going through a parking lot and just ticketing cars that are sitting there.”
TERRY LEWIS