Alberta government cancels plans for new traffic court strategy

The Alberta government is scrapping its plan to make significant changes to the province's traffic ticket appeals process.

Under Bill 21, as part of the government's Justice Transformation Initiative, motorists would need to pay a non-refundable fee of up to $150 to dispute a traffic fine.

Drivers would also have only one week to fight a ticket, and would have to challenge fines before an online adjudicator. 

Transport Minister Rajan Sawhney said Tuesday that part of the reason the government decided to scrap the plan is because of public response to the changes. 

"We realized that there were elements of the program that were not as effective as we had hoped that they would be. And of course, we heard from Albertans, we heard from our stakeholders, we heard from MLAs, so all of that feedback combined resulted in this recommendation." 

Sawhney said that the government had been looking at potential policy changes to the plan before it was scrapped. 

"The intention was always not to advance this program as it was represented in the media in the first place."

The court changes were initially meant to be implemented on Feb. 1, before being put on hold. 

The province said the plan was intended to free up police and court resources to address more serious cases while allowing people to dispute their offences, be heard and be granted extra time to pay if they need it.

"This is a great victory for Albertans," said NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir in a media release on Tuesday. 

"I'm pleased the UCP was forced to reverse course by the outcry of Alberta drivers."

Sabir called the bill a plan to deny Albertans access to justice that he says should never have been started in the first place.