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B.C. communities to receive 100 per cent of traffic fines

Whistler, Pemberton’s share of funds for policing to quadruple

The Resort Municipality of Whistler will see its revenues from traffic fines more than quadruple as a result of a provincial government decision to transfer 100 per cent of traffic fine revenues to more than 70 municipalities for community policing initiatives.

Premier Gordon Campbell first made the announcement last month at the Union of B.C. Municipalities annual conference as part of a strategy to make streets and communities safer. With municipal governments picking up a greater share of policing costs, mayors and councils requested a larger share of fines.

Under the previous formula, Whistler would have received $40,802 from the traffic fine revenues. Now Whistler and Pemberton, which share an RCMP detachment, will receive $170,578. Squamish will receive $194,588, up from the $46,545 the district was expecting.

All of the funding comes from ticket fines and court-imposed fines on violation tickets. The funding amounts for this year were calculated based on municipal policing costs for 2002 – the more money a municipality spent on policing, the bigger their share of almost $42 million in collected fines.

In the past only $10 million of collected fines were returned to municipalities.