KENSINGTON, P.E.I. - The Town of Kensington is considering a switch from paper police ticketing to an electronic system already in place in other provinces.
Chief administrative officer (CAO) Geoff Baker has been tasked with getting estimates as to how costly the switch would be for the municipality. No final decision regarding the transition has been made.
“It’s certainly something we’re looking at,” said Baker.
More fully integrating all P.E.I. police forces was one of the recommendations that came out of the provincial government’s Crime Prevention and Policing Service Model Review. Moving the Kensington, Summerside and Charlottetown police forces and the RCMP from paper tickets to an electronic system was one of those recommendations.
Baker, along with other municipal officials and representatives from across the province sit on the review’s steering committee, while a separate leadership committee is made up of higher-ranking police officers, active and retired.
Randy Robar, a former RCMP commanding officer, and John Flood, a former Charlottetown police officer, recently gave a presentation to Kensington council about e-ticketing.
Robar explained it cuts down significantly on the amount of tickets that are thrown out in court because of technicalities and also reduces the amount of time officers spend on the road during traffic stops.
Robar added P.E.I.’s three municipal police forces and the RCMP are all in various stages of readiness in terms of implementing e-ticketing and all are generally moving in that direction.
The provincial government will also have to change the required regulations to allow for the e-tickets to be valid here. A Department of Justice representative told the Journal Pioneer those changes are still in the “development and design phase”.
