CPS Alert: Backlog of Tickets Hits 14,000 Drivers

CALGARY — Nearly 14,000 drivers are about to get an unwelcome blast from the past. The Calgary Police Service is mailing out a backlog of 13,973 photo enforcement tickets that sat frozen since May 16, 2025, when the Alberta Solicitor General pulled the plug during a Canada Post labour dispute. Surprise: Your speeding ticket remembers you.

The timing couldn't be more loaded. Calgary's photo radar cash machine has been gutted by provincial restrictions that turned a $34 million revenue stream in 2023 into a $28 million hole for the 2026 budget. Welcome to the new reality where the province decides what counts as "safety" and what smells like a "cash cow."

The Province Pulls the Plug

On April 1, 2025, the provincial 2025 ATE Technology Guideline landed like a wrecking ball on Calgary's automated traffic enforcement program. Provincial highways? Off-limits. Speed-on-green cameras at intersections? Gone. What's left? School zones, playgrounds, and construction sites—the politically bulletproof stuff. Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen sold the crackdown as ending revenue grabs to focus on genuine safety. Translation: photo radar made the wrong people angry.

The city ate the loss. In March 2025, Calgary City Council voted to tap the Fiscal Stability Reserve to plug the $28 million shortfall, effectively scrubbing automated fine revenue from future police budgets. No more counting on cameras to fund the force.

Cops Push Back

Former CPS Chief Mark Neufeld and Deputy Chief Cliff O'Brien weren't shy about their frustration. They warned publicly that the provincial restrictions would "erode traffic safety" and force them to pull officers from other duties to cover enforcement gaps. Former Mayor Jyoti Gondek went further, calling for the provincial policies to be scrapped outright. The province didn't blink.

There's a narrow escape hatch: police services can apply for exemptions to reinstate cameras at high-risk intersections by proving collision rates justify the deployment. In September 2025, the province approved CPS requests for two spots—16 Avenue at 68 Street N.E. and Highway 1A at Twelve Mile Coulee Road N.W.—where the crash data was too ugly to ignore.

For now, drivers who thought their tickets vanished into the postal strike void are about to learn otherwise. The mail is moving again, and so is the paper trail.