Hundreds of charges laid in Ottawa area during OPP’s latest blitz
Posted Apr 8, 2025 11:25:07 AM.
Last Updated Apr 8, 2025 12:21:29 PM.
Provincial police conducted an enforcement blitz over a week and laid hundreds of charges to dozens of drivers in the National Capital Region.
Officials took to X and posted about the success of the program, saying that the operation ran from March 31 to April 6. Over that time, officers issued 278 licence plate violation tickets, 222 warnings and 1,148 other provincial charges. Some of the other charges include drug, uninsured driver and impaired offences.
Constable Michael Fathi, an Ottawa-detachment media relations officer, told CityNews that some drivers received multiple charges after being stopped initially for a licence plate infraction.
“The most common violation is having an obstructed plate with a tinted licence plate cover,” he said in an email. “The reason most often we have been given regarding people purchasing these covers is to avoid speed and red light cameras.”
The officer also noted that some drivers even admitted the reason they are buying the cover is to avoid a police licence plate detection system.
“Those drivers usually end up having multiple issues with either their vehicles or driver’s licence,” Fathi said.
In the past several months, police have been warning of an increasing number of people who are violating licence plate laws. This includes putting covers over the plates, letting the paint numbers wear off or removing the plate altogether.
“We definitely see issues with peeling licence plates,” Fathi said. “This problem is well over a decade old when there were faulty licence plates being issued by the Ministry of Transportation…Some plates have peeled right down to the metal and are unreadable, even closer up.”
Anyone with a peeling plate can get it replaced at a ServiceOntario, he said.
Police detachments from Ottawa, Renfrew and the Upper Ottawa Valley were involved in the crackdown.
