Gatineau City Court - Gatineau

Kangaroo court. Like East Berlin circa 1980s

Terrible service, I must say. Asked making payment over the phone, first I am told approved and see no record of transaction being made, I then call them back, and was told no it's confirmed. I remind the agent who, well you guessed it lies to me when I asked to have a receipt emailed to me by the end of the day, tells me that will be done. 4:30 rolls around, I get nothing and nothing has been done. Extremely frustrating and genuinely unprofessional.

in 2 words: kangaroo court. in more words: 1) I missed my trial because I didn't know I had to change my address with the court. Why does the court only send mail and not also make phone calls and/or send emails using the information submitted with the plea? This is 2019, not 1990. 2) I called 2 weeks after I missed the trial, wondering when it was, because I never received any updates after several months. The clerk i spoke with wrongly advised me to apply for a revocation of judgment. I didn't know I was wrongly advised until I submitted the application, went to court to present it, and was quickly told by Justice Gosslin that missing a court date because of mail issues is not acceptable. Why was I wrongly advised by the court clerk? I had to pay $30 for the application, miss a day of work and drive 5 hours to gatineau and stay the night. Do they play games like this with everyone? The judge didn't even waive the surcharges that were added for missing the court date, which added to more than 100% of the original ticket price. 3) Justice Martin Gosslin was unclear about why exactly the application was rejected. At one point, he said that he doesn't have the authority to approve applications for the reason of mail issues. At the end of the session, however, he presented his verdict as his opinion, saying that it was my fault I didn't receive the mail because I didn't pay Canada Post to forward my mail when I moved. So which one is it? It will always be a mystery to me. He cut me off and ordered me to stop talking, telling me that his decision was made and my application was rejected. i think this was an unacceptable explanation of his judgment. 4) Imagine how rich Canada Post would be if everyone was required to pay them for mail forwarding, every time they moved? I can't imagine if I had to pay them for mail forwarding every time I moved. I don't know if he knows this, but some people have to move almost every year, for work, family and financial reasons. If the decision was actually his; if he actually had the ability to approve my application and he rejected it on that basis, the fact that I changed my address with the SAAQ and I thought that the SAAQ forwards change of addresses to the court, as they forward tickets, was unjustifiably meaningless to Gosslin's decision. 5) The fact that I only lived in Gatineau for 3 years, thus I would not know everything about how QC functions; the fact that I called the court 2 weeks after the trial date; my defense, which I presented and he did not respond to; it was all meaningless. What a waste of my time. In my opinion, this is not justice, and it's very unfortunate that this court believes it's doing good for the city, being unfair to honest, hard-working, low-income, taxpaying citizens. I now have to pay for a ticket that I'm not guilty of, pay increased insurance for one year, pay unfair surcharges, and, travel costs. In a fair system, the consequences of a traffic violation are fair to the violation that was committed, and considerate of the background events, efforts, and background of the driver. (Judge Caprio) How can a court order so many fines and consequences for a violation that the court hasn't even decided, if it happened or not? 6) The court makes the Appeal Process so time consuming and complicated that it would cost me up to triple the amount of $ that it would cost me to just pay the current costs and higher insurance for the remaining years. How is this fair. If you're not guilty and your reason for missing your trial doesn't fit the unfair law or the judge's opinion, you have to pay triple the ticket $$ (and more if u lose the appeal) to not pay the ticket costs. What a shame. Gatineau was beautiful to me until I received this heavy ticket I didn't deserve and later learned about the ticket quota scandal in Quebec - the criminalization and gouging of good drivers. I definitely won't miss driving in QC, and now also this court, which seemingly works to compliment the unfair ticketing quota of the province (with the exception of Mtl).