We often receive questions from people with outstanding fines, here is a response I sent to a client this morning who had an outstanding no insurance charge:
Hi Andrew,
This is a common dilemma and one of the reasons we always recommend that people contact us at the beginning i.e. as soon as they are charged. While the offence carries a $5000 fine + 25% surcharge, we can often eliminate these charges, or have the fines drastically reduced. We always offer free consultations, so anyone can call us at 1-866-801-8299 to get some free advice on what to do, before making any decisions.
To answer your question of what happens: your license will stay suspended and collection efforts will be made against you for outstanding fines.
There are really only 4 options (I will set them all out so that other people can benefit from this post as well):
1) Pay the fines.
2) If the fines were from Part 1 charges and you just found out about them, and you were convicted through no fault of your own, there is an option to go to court and request a re-opening. However, Driving without insurance is a Part III offence, so this option would not be available to you.
3) If the convictions are recent, you can consider an Appeal. Technically the time frame is that the appeal needs to be filed within 30 days of conviction. There is a process to apply to file outside of that time frame, but if the convictions are from years ago there would be little or no point spending money to try to appeal them. Any appeal needs to have a basis for challenging either the conviction, or the sentence e.g. the court should not have convicted you, or the court should not have imposed such a harsh penalty. Appeals are also very expense; the cost to hire a Firm in the beginning (before there is a conviction) is in the hundreds, but appeals run in the thousands.
4) You can try contacting the Provincial Offences Court and ask to meet with a Justice of the Peace to see if you can get on a payment plan. If a plan is arranged, you can get a license and keep it as long as you make payments as prescribed.
Kevin