1. Certificate of Parking Infraction

The Certificate of Parking Infraction, although simple, is extremely important to your defence. There is a great deal of confusion about this document especially from justices, prosecutors, and the ticketing officers. You need to thoroughly understand what it is in order to raise it as an issue in court.

The parking infraction certificate is a declaration by the issuing officer that he believes you committed an infraction (on some date, at some location, contrary to some by-law). Notice how the bottom of the parking infraction certificate also contains a certification of service that the officer gave you a parking ticket by either:

1. affixing it to your vehicle, or
2. handing it to you.

When you drive away before the officer puts the parking ticket on your windshield the parking ticket is invalid because the officer cannot deliver it by either of the two methods above. And they are the only methods he can use. If he can't complete the parking infraction certificate, he can't file it in court. Without this document, they can't start a proceeding against you and they cannot convict you.

The other important thing to note is that the parking infraction certificate is not your parking ticket. This confuses many justices, prosecutors and even officers who are simply not aware of this basic fact.

The parking ticket you get is called a "Parking Infraction Notice". It is sometimes referred to as a "notice". If you ignore your ticket, you get a "Notice of Impending Conviction". It is also called a "notice". A notice is different than a certificate.

The reason why everyone is confused about this is because speeding tickets and other provincial offences tickets issued under Part I of the Provincial Offences Act are issued on a snap-set form. This form has multiple "carbon" copies stacked on top of each other and it is called a "Certificate of Offence". The issuing officer writes out the information on the top copy and simultaneously the other sheets imprint a copy. It's just like a credit card slip. You sign the top copy and the second sheet duplicates your signature.

This snap-set form (or "certificate") has everything they need to charge you with an offence (e.g. speeding). It contains information about what act you violated and the declaration by the officer that he served you with a ticket (which is actually the "certificate"). You get one copy, the officer keeps another, and the third copy is filed with the court. Each one is identical. The speeding ticket you get is the exact same as the certificate that is filed in court and they all contain the exact same information.

This is not the case with parking tickets which are covered under Part II of the Provincial Offences Act. See this example. Since the parking ticket does not contain the declaration of service, the certificate that is filed in court has to have it. See this example. You will note that the parking ticket and certificate are two separate documents, each containing different information.