A petition circulating amongst Town of St. Paul residents opposing photo radar was found to be insufficient, town CAO Ron Boisvert told council last week.
Council held a special meeting on Sept. 30, in which Boisvert explained that he sought and received legal advice on the petition, which had 745 signatories.
“In fact, we spent quite a few days going through all this,” he said, adding each signature was assessed to see if it was valid. Seventy signatures were excluded as invalid, for reasons such as not being witnessed, for being duplicate entries, or because the address was not included or was incomplete/incorrect.
That left the petition with 675 signatories, which satisfied the requirement of having 10 per cent of the town’s population sign. But Boisvert said the petition itself was unclear, with its wording asking council for: “A new bylaw to have all traffic enforcement done by either the RCMP or the community peace officers, thus eliminating the use of photo enforcement.”
This was subject to different interpretations and its lack of clarity would not allow council to draft a bylaw to deal with the issue, which “in my opinion, is fatal to the validity of the petition. Further, multiple questions can not be submitted in one petition,” he said.
Boisvert also pointed out that the petition was asking for only RCMP and peace officers to be responsible for traffic enforcement. However, the town’s agreement with Global Traffic Group, the private company offering photo radar services, provided that employees of Global would be appointed as town peace officers.
Thirdly, council had passed a bylaw on May 12, 2014, to enter into an agreement with Global to supply traffic enforcement services. The Municipal Government Act requires petitioners to bring a petition to amend or repeal resolutions within 60 days of the date of the resolution, with this particular petition falling outside of that time frame, said Boisvert.
“For these reasons, I declare the petition insufficient,” he told council. No one had any questions about his findings, and council accepted his report.
Paul Emile Boisvert, one of the organizers for the petition, questioned what he saw as council’s lack of consultation and engagement with citizens. Communities that have photo radar are not seeing a reduction in speeding, and problems like distracted driving are still prevalent, which he felt was a more dangerous problem than speeding.
He also questioned how much money would come back to the town as a result of photo radar, saying one court challenge for a ticket would eat up more money and resources than the money gained from tickets that are paid.
“They should get a message from this,” he said of the 745 signers of the petition. “There will be a heck of a lot more unhappiness if a second petition has to be drawn up.”
Amil Shapka, another organizer, said he found it interesting that the petition was shot down on the basis of its wording, but that petitioners in Morinville used the same wording, and their petition was deemed sufficient.
“From our standpoint, this doesn’t change anything. We’re going to seek our own legal opinion,” he said, adding he and others will circulate a petition again if they have to.
However, he said it was unfortunate that council had not given further thought to the issue, precipitating what he anticipated would turn into a “legal contest.”
“This is going to be a wasteful process.”
