Smart Start and ALCOLOCK, compared honestly

Two approved providers, and you must choose one

Ontario’s ignition interlock programme runs through Smart Start Canada and ALCOLOCK Canada. A signed lease agreement with one of them is one of only two components in a reduced-suspension application — the other being the Back on Track assessment. Reduced suspension Stream A, Stream B and Stream D in Ontario covers that application in full.

We have no commercial relationship with either. We do not install devices and we are not paid to recommend one.

What is actually published

Smart Start Ontario publishes a fee schedule. As at 27 July 2026 it listed a monthly lease of $77.97 including tax, an MTO monthly fee of $7.50, installation and removal at no charge, an unlock code at $84.75, a violation reset at $96.05, a missed appointment at $113.00 and early termination at $282.50.

ALCOLOCK Canada does not publish an Ontario fee schedule. It does publish a location list, which includes an Ottawa service centre at 5340 Canotek Road, a Nepean centre at 151 Bentley Avenue, plus Carleton Place and Cornwall.

Treat the Smart Start figures as one provider’s published price on one date, not as “the Ontario price”. Get your own quote from both.

The thing that actually differs day to day

Not the handset. Where you have to drive every 60 days. Ontario requires you to return to your provider every 60 days so the device can be downloaded and calibrated, and a missed appointment is a programme violation — the same category as tampering, carrying a six-month extension for a first offence.

Over a twelve-month condition that is six trips. A service centre twenty minutes away and one an hour away are very different propositions in an Ottawa February.

Five questions worth asking before you sign

1. Where is my nearest service centre, and what are its hours?
2. What is the total monthly cost including the MTO fee and tax?
3. What does a lockout cost me, and how fast can you issue an unlock code?
4. What happens if I need to reschedule a calibration appointment?
5. What is the early termination charge if my condition ends sooner than expected?

That last one matters more since the 2026 Ontario interlock rules changed, because a first-time condition can now end at nine months rather than twelve.