Province must help municipalities with outstanding tickets

Northumberland County is owed more than $3 million in outstanding tickets and fines by people from outside the area - the equivalent of the entire county roads budget for 2006.
Sadly, about $2 million of this was transferred to the county when the province downloaded responsibility for unpaid fines to the municipalities in 1998. Most counties in Ontario face the same fate, said county CAO Bill Pyatt.
The main culprits are U.S. visitors or people from other provinces who cannot be forced to pay when they leave. There is virtually, nothing anyone can do, Pyatt added. Some fines date back 15 years.
This is an opportunity for federal-provincial co-operation and could be easily dealt with, if governments were serious about assisting municipalities. A central database of fines and unpaid tickets could be created, if it does not already exist. When a U.S. visitor is leaving, they could be stopped at the border and made to pay. Or, the province should pick up the cost of seeking payment, including additional fees for using collection agencies. Regardless, this cannot be allowed. The same system could be used to force out of province offenders, as well.
Municipalities cannot afford to do this. The most efficient system is to do this provincially, since the large number of offenders would justify the cost.
As for those deadbeats who try to get away with this, the government should add charges to make it punitive and unattractive to not pay.