I assume the case was in Quebec and not Ontario. In Quebec the officer does not need to be present in court in most cases. The defendant can ask for the presence of the officer, but if the officer's oral testimony does not significantly add information to the case as presented in the written evidence, the defendant can be held liable for all the costs of assigning the officer.
Wow - gotta love our civil liberty loving colleagues in Quebec. One of the very points of cross-examining the officer is to discover whether this will reveal relevant information. If no relevant info is rendered it does not follow that the accused wasted the officer's time and should absorb the associated costs. The opportunity to test the prosecution's case has procedural value even where the accused is ultimately convicted. It is a necessary cost of the administration of justice and is properly born by the state.
Personal disclosure: I work for the prosecution
The simple fact is that an officer who gives out traffic tickets every day isn't going to remember too much, if anything, of a particular interception when called to court a year later - he's going to depend on his written report and his local knowledge of the area where the vehicle was intercepted. It is extremely rare that he will be able to add any significant further information (exceptions include accidents and dangerous driving accusations where he will be systematically assigned as a witness for the prosecution anyway).
Yes, I'm surely biased, but the requirement in other jurisdictions for the presence of the officer is wasteful and counterproductive to the justice system (in that prosecutions with iron-clad proof of the defendant's guilt fail too frequently for procedural issues).
What problem? Half the time it's the police officer who tells you to go to court and fight it, like my last ticket
They say that to anyone who complains or argues about the ticket at the roadside (which is a waste of your time at best, and harmful to your case at worst). In my experience such a comment from the officer has no correlation with the quality of the proof.
