Want to fight a traffic ticket? You will no longer have your day in court in Alberta!
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This would definitely be a bad thing. I say "would," because implementation of this change (by the United Conservative Party-led government) is on hold for a few months. It is possible (but in my opinion unlikely) that this $50/$150 scheme will be turned back.
It's worth noting how this crept in: Last year a similar approach was applied to impaired-driving cases, following an approach taken in British Columbia. When this came up in Alberta, few people objected because nobody wanted to be seen as "soft" on impaired driving. Unfortunately, that opened the door to applying this barrier-to-due-process scheme to a wider set of offences.
The argument given by those in favour of this measure is that the courts are overburdened with hearing traffic cases, and that this will stop frivolous challenges--especially by "rural repeat offenders." Having due process available to people can seem inconvenient and expensive, but losing it would be much more costly in a broader sense.
For an example editorial in opposition to this plan (written before it was put on hold), see https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-ditching-traffic-court-denies-justice .
