---
title: "Ottawa to write off 6,539 old parking tickets worth $273,047"
description: "City staff are recommending council cancel thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued before 1995, as well as 440 outstanding offence tickets from the 1990s and 2000s."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/on/ottawa-2026/news/ottawa-parking-fines-writeoff-november-2026"
last_updated: "2026-11-02T14:25:19.262Z"
---

Ottawa city staff are recommending that council cancel 6,539 unpaid parking tickets issued between 1989 and 1995, according to a report filed for the finance and corporate services committee. CTV News Ottawa reported the recommendation on November 2.

The tickets are worth $273,047 combined. Deputy City Treasurer Joseph Muhuni says the city has tried every available collection method and cannot recover the money.

## What the city tried before giving up

The staff report lists the collection steps the city took before recommending the writeoff: sending collection notices, offering extended payment plans, reporting debtors to credit bureaus, adding fines to tax rolls, assigning accounts to third-party collection agencies, and taking civil enforcement steps including wage garnishment.

"Despite these attempts, certain infractions have remained uncollectible," the report says, as quoted by CTV News Ottawa.

The tickets predate Ottawa's 2001 municipal amalgamation, which merged the old City of Ottawa with surrounding communities. CTV News Ottawa reports the city wrote off $2.6 million in a similar batch in 2024, covering 71,835 tickets also issued between 1989 and 1995.

## Other fines in the same report

The same report recommends writing off 440 Provincial Offences Act tickets worth $498,276, issued for various offences between 1993 and 2013.

CTV News Ottawa reports the city also plans to cancel $981,101 in corporate receivable accounts, $444,146 in water, wastewater and stormwater bills, and two transit receivables worth $227,123.

Ottawa's parking ticket program collected $34.3 million in revenue in 2025, and Provincial Offences Act revenue reached $54 million that year, according to the CTV News Ottawa report.

Unpaid parking tickets stay on a driver's record with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. Ontario-plated vehicle owners cannot renew their licence plates until all infractions tied to their plate are paid. That enforcement tool applies to current tickets, but the pre-1995 tickets being written off are too old to collect under that process.

## What happens next

The finance and corporate services committee meets on November 10, 2026. Residents who want to see the full staff report or attend the meeting can check the City of Ottawa's meetings site at [https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/](https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/).

Mayor [Mark Sutcliffe](/on/ottawa-2026/candidates/mark-sutcliffe) and the full council will then vote on whether to accept the recommendation.

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