The City of Ottawa is giving up on collecting thousands of unpaid parking tickets dating back more than 30 years. A report for the finance and corporate services committee meeting on Nov. 10 shows the city is ceasing collection activities on 6,539 parking tickets issued between 1989 and 1995, worth $273,047. All unpaid parking tickets are put into default with the Ministry of Transportation. Ontario plated vehicle owners are denied renewal of their licence plates until they pay all infractions tied to the licence plate, including parking tickets. Deputy City Treasurer Joseph Muhuni said the city collected $2.85 million from defaulted parking tickets between August and December 2025. The total parking receivables as of December 2025 was $71.7 million, according to the report. Defaulted fines are transferred by the City of Ottawa to collection units. Parking tickets generated $34.3 million in revenue for the City of Ottawa in 2025, according Muhuni. In 2024, the city forgave $2.6 million in unpaid fines for parking tickets after exhausting all efforts to track down drivers. The 71,835 outstanding parking tickets were issued between 1989 and 1995, prior to the amalgamation of the City of Ottawa. Unpaid Provincial Offences Act tickets The city is also writing off 440 outstanding Provincial Offences Act tickets worth $498,276. Muhuni says the tickets were issued for various offences between 1993 and 2013. “The Provincial Offences Act (POA) Collections unit employs several strategies to collect on unpaid debt,” the report said. “These include timely creation and distribution of all collection notices and communications, progressively severe delinquency notices, consideration of extended payment plans, application of available administrative sanctions, such as reporting to a credit bureau, the addition of fines to the tax roll, assignment to third party collection agencies, and civil fine enforcement mechanisms including but not limited to garnishment of wages. Despite these attempts, certain infractions have remained uncollectible.” According to Muhuni, Provincial Offences Act revenue was $54 million in 2025. A total of $14.3 million in defaulted Provincial Offences Act fines were collected in 2025. The city transfers approximately $8.5 million in defaulted tickets to the collection unit annually, according to the report. The report shows the City of Ottawa is also writing off $981,101 corporate receivable accounts, $444,146 worth of water, wastewater and stormwater bills, and two transit receivables worth $227,123.
