Tory pledges to launch ‘blitz’ against people, businesses that owe city money

Auditor general report says unpaid arrears costing city $577 million.

Thestar.com
May 6, 2018
Noor Javed

John Tory says he wants to launch a “blitz” this summer against companies and individuals who owe the city tens of thousands of dollars in fines, after an auditor general report found the unpaid arrears are shortchanging Toronto by a staggering $577 million.

“I find this a source of a great concern,” the mayor said in an interview Sunday. “What you have here is the city being denied a great amount of money that it could use, that is meant to be paid by people who have broken the law, and have been convicted of the same.”

He says that there is still time to launch a blitz in 2018, which will “focus on the newest and biggest accounts,” he said.

“At least we can make a big dent in the summer,” he said, adding that “regular reporting to the public (on the issue) will hold our feet to the fire, of both elected people and officials who are in charge of this.”

The audit, conducted last month by Beverly Romeo-Beehler, looked at all provincial offences and municipal bylaws, such as infractions ranging from speeding, trespassing, alcohol infractions.

Parking wasn’t included in the probe. The audit found that 2/3 of people were diligent in paying their fines, but more needed to be done to go after those who didn’t.

“Given that the City is faced with constant pressure to find funding for crucial programs and services, it is important that those who owe debts to the City pay them,” she wrote in the audit.

She also found that that three main issues were: a lack of comprehensive collections strategy, inadequate data systems and insufficient performance targets.

Tory said that going after those who don’t pay their fines “comes down to a question of fairness.”

“We have to decide to deploy the full arsenal to track the scofflaws down,” said Tory, alluding to some of the recommendations put forth by the auditor general.

He said among the AG’s recommendations the city should implement quickly include:

• Creating partnerships with the Canadian Revenue Agency to grab income tax refunds to cover outstanding fines.

• Creating agreements with municipalities outside of Toronto to be able to add the taxes to their property bills. He said, for example, there are 30,000 people in York Region who owe $11 million in fines to the city.

The city already has such agreements in place with Mississauga, Ottawa and Belleville.

Tory said he would need clarification on the legality of adopting some recommendations such as withholding business licences to businesses that don’t pay up. And some of the auditor general’s recommendations will also require permission from the province.

But in the meantime, he plans to press staff on why recommendations from a previous 2012 AG report were not implemented.

“My questions (to staff) on Monday are going to be, let’s get on with it. How come we haven’t done it before now?”

He said the city also needs to look at infractions that have been around for a long time to make sure the records are up to date.

Some examples of outstanding fines listed in the report include:

• A company and its owners together have more than $575,000 in default, related to violations of an industry act. The fines defaulted in September 2016. The company is still in operation, but has not made any payment towards their outstanding fines. Due to an administrative error, all the defendants have not gotten a default notice. No collection action has been taken including assignment of the account to a collection agency.

• An individual with 38 offences totalling nearly $130,000. Of these, eight relate to driving without insurance and 16 relate to Highway Traffic Act offences including careless driving. The individual has had their licence suspended and plates denied. We do not know if this individual is still driving a vehicle.

• A restaurant was fined for public health related violations in July 2013 and was required to pay by December 2013. Nearly $36,000 still remains in default. The only action taken has been to assign this account to a collection agency.