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TRANSCRIPT
CoverCABThis month’s cover cab is Mohamud Hagi Salim Hassan who says
he worked hard for 10 years to buy his own plate and now he’s glad he did. Hassan says these days plate ownership is the only
way a driver can stay in the business and try to earn a living.
Has anyone at city hall ever paused to ask themselves how some 60,000 Toronto vehicle-for-hire operators can possibilly earn a decent living? Pay their bills? Feed their families? Does anyone at Toronto city hall care enough to do the math and calculate the human cost of their reckless disregard for taxi regulation? Editorial, page 6 Cab Stand, page 5
Do the math!
January 2018 Vol. 33 No. 1
The taxi plot thickens… page 3
What is Tracey Cook doing? page 2
FreePublications Mail Registration No. 40050017
How many cabs are too many? page 7
2 January 2018
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Tracey Cook is refusing to have a meeting – the head of Licensing! She must be getting some kind of directions. The issue here is collecting fees from TNC’s. They know how much money it is. We’re talking about millions and millions of dollars. Where does this money go?
by Mike Beggs
The New Year rolled in with still no sign of To-ronto Municipal Licens-
ing & Standards’ promised one-year review of the new Ve-hicle-For-Hire bylaw.
This comes at the most chal-lenging of times for Toronto’s li-censed taxi industry, having seen its revenue base further eroded by an unlimited number of Uber X vehicles, and now compet-ing against yet another American ridesharing power, Lyft – not to mention the new Toronto-based startup, InstaRyde.
The continued delay of MLS executive di-rector Tracey Cook’s report reflects broader indifference to taxi in-dustry concerns at city hall -- save for Council’s recent decisions calling for Uber to disclose how many Torontonians were affected by the massive 2016 data breach.
“It’s not only the re-port. It’s everything that happened over the past three years,” observes Lucky 7 Taxi owner Lawrence Eisenberg.
And, he doubts Cook’s report will change anything when it finally arrives.
“You have to consider the atti-tude of the people doing the regu-lation,” he continues. “Is it going to come out in favour of the City? Absolutely? Of the taxi industry? Absolutely not.”
With the business near the breaking point, iTaxiworkers As-sociation director Mohammed “Reza” Hosseinioun suggests, “The City will never work for the taxi industry.”
“(Tracey Cook is) refusing to have a meeting – the head of Li-censing! She must be getting some
kind of directions,” he alleges. “The issue here is collecting fees from TNC’s. They know how much money it is. We’re talking about millions and millions of dol-lars. Where does this money go?”
He suggests if Mayor John Tory is re-elected next fall, “this busi-ness is finished.”
“Right now, you see he’s not hearing anything on the Review,” he alleges. “But, this will be the first thing the City will do after the election. He’s a deft politician.”
Veteran Ambassador driver Rudy Valverde is equally disillu-sioned.
“I think (promising the Review was) just to shut people up, and they’re doing nothing,” he alleges. “Right now, they’re turning a blind eye because the Mayor is in love with Uber. He’s not going to ramp up anything now.”
Of the Review’s delay, Best-Tech Taxi owner Baljit Sikand says, “That’s what we have seen on and off from the MLS (over the years). They say they will do something, and they don’t seem to do it in time.
“I don’t see any changes com-ing in the bylaw. I don’t think the councillors have the appetite right now to deal with taxi issues. Not until next Council.”
While having no hard numbers to go by, he claims there’s a con-tinued lack of enforcement against Uber X vehicles – be it for not dis-playing the required stickers, for taking street hails in violation of the bylaw, or for brazenly picking up from the designated taxi stand outside Union Station.
“There are 50,000 Uber cars, and I hardly see any with a sticker on them,” he alleges. “We have (almost) 6,000 cabs, and we (all have roof-lights, and numbers). So, there’s 40,000 Uber cars who should be (marked).”
This only exacerbates safety concerns surrounding passengers – particularly young women trav-eling alone late at night. Uber’s driver background checks are al-ready under heavy media scrutiny around the world, and last month Toronto Council directed staff to report on the prospect of mandat-ing cameras in TNC’s, with Coun-cillor Jim Karygiannis citing sev-eral sexual assault charges against Uber drivers in the past year.
Cameras have also proven to be a successful deterrent to crimes against cab drivers. But in mid-December, Winnipeg became the latest Canadian city to approve ridesharing, while acceding to Uber’s lobbying to make cameras non-mandatory for its drivers.
“(These politicians), they were so committed to safety, Uber wants in, and it’s not so important anymore,” alleges Hamilton own-er/operator Hans Wienhold.
Eisenberg suggests Toronto Council is not going to rock the boat either, as long as it is receiv-ing its 30 cents per run from Uber and other TNC’s.
“That’s all they’re interested in. They’re not interested in protect-ing the public, or the industry,” he alleges. “The removal of the driver training school, and DOT inspec-tion centre proves that.
“Do you know how many years it took to get what (safety mea-sures) we’ve got?”
He suggests the taxi industry had a better regulatory situation, when it fell under the purview of the long-defunct Metro Licensing
Commission, and its general man-ager Carol Ruddell-Foster.
“It worked better with the MLC. They worked with the taxi indus-try and the public was allowed to be there. You could bring things forward. The problem is, they took everything for information and didn’t use it,” he comments.
“The City used to deal directly with the taxi industry. Not any-more. Who was on the road? The taxi industry, not anyone else.”
He points to the City’s new King Street transit plan, and its effects on cab drivers – who are now required to make a right turn off King, after traveling just one block.
“It doesn’t make sense. If they wanted to move the streetcars, make it a one-way street -- like they did with Adelaide, and Wellesley,” he suggests. “They could do that with King, and Queen. You want to move the traffic, move it. You’d have four lanes.”
“King Street is a disaster,” Hos-seinioun agrees. “They basically killed the taxi business, because people are not taking taxis on King Street. We are sitting here for hours, and hours.”
He cites one lunch-hour run, • see page 8
Has anyone at city hall asked themselves how Toronto’s 60,000 vehicles-for-hire will earn a living?
3 January 2018
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by Mike Beggs
The Uber-Lyft war has been heating up in the U.S. over the past year --
and it’s now officially underway in Toronto.
On December 12, Lyft cars hit the streets with Blues Jays’ pitcher Marcus Stroman taking the first ceremonial ride, in a fundraising effort for Toronto Sick Kids Hos-pital.
This marks Lyft’s first step to-wards expansion outside of the U.S. -- with co-founder and CEO John Zimmer recently voicing his long-term ambitions of being the number one ridesharing company in the world.
Aiming to build market share from Hamilton to Oshawa, and as far north as Newmarket, Lyft can now – just like Uber -- put an un-limited number of vehicles on the road.
“They’re going to grab a mar-ket share. They’ve got a business model which is reportedly more friendly, specifically more driver-friendly, and they will pull away some Uber drivers, and some cab drivers,” observes Mississauga plate owner Peter Pellier. “How large, who knows?
“They will be a player, and that will add hundreds, or thousands of cars to the number of cars in the market. It’s going to be staggering. I just don’t see how all the players involved can make a go of it.”
Beck Taxi owner Gail Souter told CP 24, “adding thousands of extra cars to Toronto streets is the last thing we need.”
Best-Tech Taxi owner Baljit Sikand is among those to suggest that, for now, “Lyft will be eating out of Uber’s customer base.”
“But they seem to have better values than Uber,” he says. “If that is the case, they might be getting corporate accounts.”
Ambassador driver Rudy Val-verde feels Lyft will be going after the same business Uber trades in.
“I believe Uber drivers are go-ing to shift to Lyft, because it is going to charge them less money,” he offers.
“And I think Uber is just the tip of the iceberg – or the Uber-like business model -- because the kids are into that stuff. They love it. They’re using Uber for food deliv-ery. The cab industry already has apps – Beck, Co-op-Crown – but they’re playing catch-up to Uber.”
For all of the controversy sur-rounding Uber, many industry figures acknowledge ridesharing apps are the method most consum-ers want to book a ride.
“To be honest, the way it’s go-ing is to technology, and only the
elderly people will stay with the taxi industry,” says a driver named Elias.
“In my opinion, people love what they’re offering -- so the taxi industry has to catch up on that.”
Sikand agrees, “Young people simply don’t want to get a phone call from somebody, they want an e-mail, or a text message.”
And in recognition of this trend, he has obtained a Transportation Network Company (TNC) license, and is presently “working out the little bugs” in his own app-based service, RideIn, featuring 70 or 80 luxury cars.
“It will by my own TNC com-pany, not like Uber X, like Uber Black, but where Uber Black would be charging $100 to get you downtown, ours will be $55 -- bet-ter rates, no surge pricing, later model cars, and experienced driv-ers,” he relates.
“I hope people will know (about us) in January. I’m working with my data people to do proper mar-keting.”
Lyft is reportedly also eyeing the Ottawa market, a year after Uber became licensed there. By-law manager Roger Chapman con-firmed in mid-November that city officials met with Lyft executives to discuss licensing the company, and expects it to submit a formal application soon – after which its cars could be on the road within a week.
Meanwhile, the Toronto-based InstaRyde kicked off service on December 1, promising cheaper rates, surge-free pricing, and high-er driver income.
In a press release, InstaRyde
marketing manager Naveed Man-zook stated, “We have taken the time to listen to drivers and riders in our city and have developed In-staRyde as the answer.”
New drivers receive a bonus of $300 for completing 50 rides in 30 days, and $100 for each driver referral. InstaRyde will take a flat rate of just 99 cents per trip from the driver, while passengers will be offered such incentives as free water and gifts.
For December, they donated 25 percent of each ride to a local char-ity.
CEO and co-founder Karim Sumar says they first developed InstaRyde in 2008 as a remedy to Toronto’s gridlock, and feels they can create “custom solutions for Toronto”. He wants to offer a Ca-nadian option to the popular ride-sharing companies, and, “take To-ronto innovation and technology to the next level.”
Meanwhile, another company, Facedrive Inc. hit Toronto streets on October 30. Its app calculates the estimated Co2 emissions of each ride, and then donates an equivalent sum of money to To-ronto Parks and Tree Foundation.
iTaxi Associations director Mo-hammed “Reza” Hosseinioun sug-gests the PTC count could quickly hit 10 or 12, just as it is with taxi brokerages.
“Of course, when these compa-nies look at the City of Toronto as open game for them, they figure ‘We can do whatever we want.’ Why not?” he says. “They can base themselves here, and move to other cities. All over the world the Mayor has been regarded as
(ridesharing-friendly).”But he suggests the PTC’s,
“don’t have anything special”, mostly just a cheaper price than the taxi industry.
“They can buy any car they want, and all these other things. But if they (hike) their price, you will see no one will get into an Uber, or Lyft car. The element here is the price.”
“(And) this is basically from the pockets of their poor drivers. They don’t even make minimum wage.”
Hamilton owner/operator Hans Wienhold observes that once the competition comes in, “What has Uber got anyone else can’t repli-cate? There will be plenty of other businesses like Uber.”
“I think the percentage they take from the drivers will be driven down by the competition. I don’t think it will be any different from the interest on credit cards -- two or three percent. It’s the driver who is doing all the work,” he continues.
• see page 11
The plot thickens as Lyft and other app services hit the streets
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by Mike Beggs
The news that Denzil Minnan-Wong is step-ping down to run for a
provincial seat may be regarded by some as a significant loss for Toronto City Council, but cer-tainly not by the Toronto taxi industry.
On a break from Council on December 7, Minnan-Wong an-nounced his candidacy for the Pro-gressive Conservative nomination for Don Valley East, the same rid-ing he has served as councillor for for the past 24 years.
He told the Toronto Star it was “time for a change” both for him, and at Queen’s Park where the
Liberals have held power since 2003.
In the Tory leadership race, this fiscal conservative has thrown his support behind Patrick Brown, who promises tax cuts and money for day care and seniors’ dental care, and funding for public tran-sit.
“I think Patrick Brown is a re-ally appealing candidate. He’s at-tracting a diverse team, he’s got a modern platform that appeals to urban Toronto,” he told CP 24.
He deems Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government to be, “past its best before date”.
Minnan-Wong, 53, represents the kind of high-profile candidate the Tories are needing to boost their level of support within the 416. Should he win the PC nomi-nation for Don Valley East, he will run against incumbent and Chil-dren and Youth Services Minister Michael Coteau in the provincial election, scheduled for June 7, 2018.
Minnan-Wong will remain on Council during the nomina-tion process, where he serves as Deputy Mayor, and has, “a great 30-year relationship” with Mayor John Tory.
During his tenure on Council, he became known as a staunch advo-
cate for keeping a lid on taxes and the size of government, and for spearheading the first separated bike path in Toronto.
But his many forays into the taxi file were not so well-received. The Toronto taxi industry points to a series of devastating measures at the hands of he and his mentor, former Councillor Howard Mos-coe, dating right back to the 1998
Taxi Reforms, where the Ambas-sador Taxi program was enacted. He was also the driver behind the mid-2000’s introduction of printing meters in Toronto cabs, a short-lived and costly measure for operators.
Many industry leaders were de-lighted to hear of his December 7 announcement.
“May God keep him away from
us,” says owner Andy Reti.“The man was a complete disas-
ter. He didn’t know what he was talking about. But being a politi-cian, logic does not matter.”
“That’s a positive thing. Any time we can get away from him, the better,” agrees Independent Toronto Taxi Inc. president Mike Tranquada.
Tranquada maintains whether the industry realized it or not, the Ambassador plate was introduced by the City, “to see what the indus-try would do with deregulation.”
A former long-time industry representative on the Taxicab Ad-visory Committee, driver John Dufort, like many, suggests Min-nan-Wong served as, “Howard Moscoe’s puppet” on taxi items.
And while Minnan-Wong claimed the Ambassador Taxi program, and other measures, improved the level of service for passengers, and working condi-tions for drivers, Dufort counters, “(There was) nothing to help the driver that I can see, over many years.
“I would like him to spell out what he has done. Printing meters? Everything he decided was for the better cost me more money.”
As a resident of Don Valley East, long-time owner/operator Gerry Manley says Minnan-Wong has been an “albatross” around his neck, as he fights for justice on the part of the industry.
“He seems to think he has the answers to the City’s taxi industry woes, since he sat on the Licensing & Standards Committee for sev-eral years,” Manley alleges. “That handcuffed me personally, as I did not have a councillor to go to that
• see page 9
Few mourn Minnan-Wong announcement he is moving on
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by Mike Beggs
The Province of Quebec has become the first ju-risdiction in the world to
commit to compensating taxi permit holders for their losses due to Uber.
And that’s encouraging news for Toronto operators, who have been requesting financial redress for a huge drop in driver revenues and plate values since Uber X first hit the streets here in 2013.
Transport Minister Andre For-tin made this groundbreaking an-nouncement on December 15. A working group will now be estab-lished (made up of members of the cab industry and the province’s finance department) to determine the amount of the compensation and when the payout will begin. The Minister promised to have a policy in place by February. He also announced a $44- million pro-gram over five years to modernize the cab industry.
“We’re talking about a compen-sation package that has to be dis-cussed with the taxi industry, to see how we can (best meet their needs),” he told the Montreal Ga-zette.
Permits are required to drive a taxi in La Belle Province, dat-ing back decades. They are sold on the secondary market, and on sites like Craigslist, and Kijiji for upwards of $200,000. However, a recent Gazette article found Montreal permits had fallen off in value by as much as 18.9 per cent over the past year, due to the incursions of the app-based Uber X service.
Taxi drivers say they are at a dis-advantage because Uber drivers do not require permits. And, they face higher operating costs.
Requests for compensation from Toronto operators have fallen on deaf ears at city hall, where Mu-nicipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) staff is months behind schedule on a one-year review of the new Vehicle-For-Hire Bylaw. They say the bylaw has tilted the playing field in favour of Uber -- belying the claims of Mayor John Tory.
“I find it rather refreshing that at least one government in our world is going to compensate, at least to some degree, for the disruption and financial loss Uber and like companies have caused the taxi industry,” says long-time owner/operator Gerry Manley.
“I never for a moment bought into the excuse that there are, at
present, no laws allowing the City of Toronto, or the Province of On-tario to consider this path. They, at any time they wished, could enact legislation that would allow them to give compensation to our af-fected members.”
“I think it’s a reasonable thing to do (on the part of the Quebec gov-ernment),” chips in former Toronto shift driver Peter McSherry. “They should have their property bought back at a good market price.”
“There’s somebody there who sees it right. We have a few peo-ple in Toronto that see it, but not enough to sway the Council.”
Independent Toronto Taxi Inc. president Mike Tranquada feels Quebec’s decision could have a ripple effect across other cities.
“I think it will stand out, (com-ing from) one of Canada’s biggest provinces,” he says. “And Vancou-ver, the same thing. Other cities might take notice.”
Veteran driver John Dufort dis-agrees.
“It will never happen,” he says, “when you get a story (in the To-ronto Star, with MLS executive director) Tracey Cook saying To-ronto has more important things to deal with than the taxi industry. And we’re the ones who give them the majority of their money for their cost recovery scheme. But we don’t rate.”
But long-time owner Andy Reti believes this could set a huge prec-edent.
“It only takes one to start a revo-
lution, and then the others follow,” he comments. “I fervently hope Toronto will be the next.”
“This could be a big thing, if the Toronto taxi industry is final-ly willing to work together as a group.”
Manley deems the Quebec de-cision “a clear sign, that would ultimately strengthen a court case against the Province and the City of Toronto for (their) nefarious ac-tions against our membership.”
McSherry concurs, “If the in-
dustry would get together, there would be an easy law suit. (Taxis are) wearing a plate that says own-er on it, and have an individual number. But the City takes advan-tage of our disorganization.”
Province of Quebec promises to compensate taxi industry for losses due to Uber
StandCabby Andy Réti
Toronto’s war against its own taxi industry - six decades of ill will
A t this time of the year it is customary to reflect upon what took place
in the previous 12 months. The shocking reality in 2018 is that a once thriving and viable industry is on its knees, mor-tally wounded by an incredible onslaught of bad behaviour emanating from City Hall. The permission to allow Uber, Lyft and other “transportation pro-viders” caused great havoc and declining incomes.
Having been an occasional contributor to Taxi News for over 25 years, I decided to re-view comments, concerns and warnings about the future from the past few decades.
“I know that there are too many taxis but if they don’t like it, let them take us to court,”said former Councillor Howard Mos-coe after a meeting relating to taxicab reforms in the 1990’s. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong
went even further by stating in a 1998 press conference (attended by this writer) addressing the Ambassador taxi program intro-duced under the City’s 1998 taxi industry reforms: “The plates belong to the City of Toronto, we do not want people to make money off the metal plates. To allow the (previously) existing system was a mistake in the first place…” “We want to increase the number of plates”.
City Hall did just that by issu-ing about 1,400 Ambassador taxi permits WITHOUT ANY IS-SUING FORMULA. It must be noted that the Ambassador plate HAD NO VALUE at the time. Some of the recipients were on
the waiting list for over 20 years for a regular plate (aka Standard plate).
By creating two classes of li-censes doing EXACTLY the same work the City thought it was on its way to devaluing the Standard plate, so people couldn’t “make money off the metal plate”. Imagine a City whose goal is to prevent an in-dustry from making money. This was one of many steps which eventually led to allowing Uber to compete UNFAIRLY against taxis.
Most of Toronto’s 1998 Taxi Reform activities were ill advised and mean spirited. However, in
• see page 12
6 January 2018 Editorial John Q. Duffy – Chedmount Investments Ltd.
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More letters to the Editor on page 10
It was a good ride, while it lasted…
To the editor,(Editor’s note: This letter comes from an email exchange in which vet-eran industry observer Gerry Manley speculated that Uber might never have gained a foothold in the city if Toronto taxi brokers had taken a more proactive approach to developing a consumer friendly dispatch-ing app.)
Let’s assume the brokerages possessed the wherewithal back then to cut Uber off at the proverbial pass by introducing an effective app, thereby nullifying any need for so-called ride-
sharing companies. It begs the question, would someone like Travis Kalanick have gone
down a different path, or would he have pursued his interest in making millions, possibly billions, in ground transportation, knowing full well that the real payoff comes when autonomous cars are introduced?
Say what you will about Kalanick’s lack of ethics, the man raised bil-lions, knowing full well his long-term vision – one certainly not on the brokerages’ radar scope – was to be a front-runner in the development of self-driving technology.
It goes without saying, the brokerages want no part of this, seeing as their revenue is derived from dues paying operators. Suffice to say, in their absence, taxi dispatching services will find themselves in a bit of a pickle, to say the least.
Digital technology is changing every facet of our lives at an alarming pace. The taxi industry as we have known it for decades is about to be totally transformed, as is car ownership itself. No level of government on the planet is capable of stopping the inevitable, no matter how committed to the public good.
We’ve had a good ride, Gerry, but like with all rides, it’s about to come to an end.
Peter D. Pellier
Driver’s dash cameras are not a good idea
To the editor,I noted in the December edition of Taxi News that someone named Ba-umber has installed a dash camera in addition to his bylaw mandated in-car camera. • see “Drivers dash cams” page 10
Do the math!The ramifications of the recent European Court of Justice
decision to the effect that Uber, and by extension other app-based vehicle dispatch services, are in fact taxi ser-
vices, will likely have widespread effects across European Union countries for both how those companies are operated and how their drivers are treated. Indeed, it will likely affect many other technology-based services, but time will sort that out.
The effects of the ECJ decision for Canadian tech-based services, and Canadian taxi companies and drivers, are not so clear. In part this lack of clarity is due to different laws governing these businesses, including labor laws. In part it is due to a hodge-podge of court deci-sions in different jurisdictions here. In part it is due to different ways our politicians and bureaucrats in widespread municipalities view this aspect of technological change.
In Toronto we have a Mayor and City Council who undeniably fa-vor these new app-based dispatch services at the huge expense of traditional taxi companies and drivers.
Council has become addicted to this new revenue stream that shovels millions of dollars a year into City coffers while ignoring the numerous downsides of app-based vehicle for hire dispatching, including adding many thousands of extra cars to already crowded city streets, adding to our air pollution, hurting Toronto Transit Com-mission ridership, decimating taxi driver incomes while promoting very low paying and mostly part-time jobs while also turning a blind eye to vehicle, passenger and driver safety, financially hurting taxi owners who have invested their lives and money in the taxi industry based on City permissions and promises, and leaving consumer pro-tection to the wolves.
By and large, competition is a good thing for consumers, as long as it is fair competition. The problem is that the competition promoted by the Mayor and Council has never been even approximately fair by any definition.
The “reforms” were obviously designed to be unfair from the out-set. The last round of so-called taxi “reforms” was deliberately, cal-lously, designed to destroy traditional taxi services and investments while smoothing the way for new technologies to supplant them.
Traditional taxis have been saddled with huge costs Uber and other app-based dispatchers do not have: the need for snow tires, in-car cameras, vehicle and insurance requirements, police checks of driver backgrounds, extensive driver training, to name a few. No wonder Uber and other like companies are cheaper than taxis: they don’t have the regulatory burdens taxis have. As well, effective enforcement of the few rules governing app-based services is essentially non-existent.
Other Canadian jurisdictions have been alert enough to see early what the European court has now decided and aggressively acted to protect traditional taxi businesses, cab drivers and consumers. Que-bec is now apparently about to financially compensate traditional taxi plate owners for the loss of their business value (plate prices) due to this unfair competition.
We do expect to see the hugely overdue follow-up report on the effects of the City’s last round of reforms some time in the New Year but are not holding our breath waiting for it to come out, nor are we hugely optimistic about what it will conclude.
We do see the calls for legal action against the City based on its destructive policies towards the taxi business, and to a large degree sympathize. One major hurdle to this action we see is courts have repeatedly ruled the City is within its rights to do pretty well what it wants with taxi legislation. We do not pretend to be competent to comment on Charter of Rights and Freedoms legal arguments. We are also not sure there is widespread enough financial support within the industry to fund any such legal action.
Still, at present there are, using City numbers, just under 60,000 licensed for hire vehicles serving a population of about 2.7 million. This vehicle to population ratio is simply obscene: it is a guarantee that no one in the industry will be able to make a decent living. It is a classic example of how de facto deregulation of taxis is always a disaster.
Our suggestion is simple. Regulate all for hire vehicle services in exactly the same way. Europe is now moving in that direction. It is high time our cities and other jurisdictions did the same.
7 January 2018Comment
There are a number of things going on with or af-fecting Toronto’s taxi industry and its partici-pants, either directly or indirectly. Some are fair-
ly easy to get a handle on, others not so much. What is certain is there will continue to be a long list of stories to pursue in the new year.
Chief among these is a recent, not appealable, European Court of Justice decision to the effect that Uber must be reg-ulated the same as taxi companies. The decision applies in all European Union countries. It rejected Uber’s argument that it is simply a computer services company.
The case against Uber was brought by a union represent-ing taxi drivers in Barcelona, Spain.
At least in part, this means Uber drivers in Europe must be treated by the company as employees, not as arms-length independent contractors. (A case in England on Uber driver status is now before the courts.) Apparently while Uber says it now operates as a licensed taxi service in England and the decision will have little impact there, it could well affect its cost structure through higher insurance, driver benefits and for passenger safety, stronger background checks and requirements for professional driver licenses.
As well, local authorities across the European Union may decide to regulate Uber as a taxi company, all making rides more expensive for passengers and narrowing the price dif-ferential between Uber and traditional taxi services.
I’m going to take a bit of a leap here and suggest the rul-ing will also apply to other app-based competitors of Uber.
In countries and various municipal jurisdictions world-wide, Uber has either been forced to cease operations (ed. Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria) or severely modify its opera-tions (Italy, and some Texas jurisdictions like Austin, and some Canadian cities like Vancouver, thought I hear Uber will be returning there), and it has threatened to pull out of Quebec due to more stringent regulations (35 hours of train-ing and a police record check for drivers).
So what does this mean for Canadian taxi drivers and the companies they work with? Frankly, this is eminently un-clear at the moment. Much depends on how our politicians,
bureaucrats and courts react to the ECJ decision. It may, or many not, affect their thinking. Toronto’s regulators and its taxi industry overall are hamstrung in some ways by a court decision to the effect that Uber and its competitors are a technology, not a taxi company. Yes, Uber now has to be licensed in Toronto, but it operates under vastly looser and less expensive regulations than those imposed on traditional taxis.
As well, there is strong political support for Uber on City Council, at least in part due to the vast amounts of money it
is now contributing to city coffers though a per-ride fee paid to the City. (Hmm, just a thought, but who is auditing these
payments? I somehow doubt any private company is going to give the City unfettered access to its financial records.)
The damage that has been inflicted on regular taxi drivers by Uber, and further damage that will come by the advent of Lyft and likely other competitors in the future, simply does not register with politicians or bureaucrats. Yes, some cab companies maintain they have never handled so many calls (Beck) but the vast majority of drivers are reporting to us that their earnings are down dramatically.
We do have a municipal election coming in 2018, so it may not be too early to start talking among yourselves to see what can be done to improve the political landscape for the taxi industry. Perhaps you could start by figuring out who on Council are your friends and who are not. I kind of expect to be talking about this more.
To conclude, I extend to all my most sincere wishes for a safe and prosperous 2018. Things will not be easy for taxis. But we can always hope for a minimal degree of sanity to strike City Hall. I’m sure our readers can well imagine how depressing and frustrating it is for me to continue to publish and comment on an endless stream of doom and gloom, bad news stories. I fervently hope better news will emerge in the New Year.
Here’s hoping for better news in the New Year!
To the editor,
Toronto’s taxi industry membership is beginning to wake up to the fact that there will never be a fair and equitable political and/or bureaucratic
resolution to their many outstanding issues with the City which has forced them to the brink of financial ruin.
I believe the industry’s best chance of winning any satis-factory resolution is in the courts.
As someone with a long history in this business I have received numerous enquiries about what the industry can do to recoup at least some of the financial losses they have incurred because of the actions of the City and the Province surrounding Private Transportation Companies (PTC’s).
One of the most asked question is about the number of ve-hicles eating from the same Vehicles-for-Hire pie, and I be-lieve this issue should comprise one of the cornerstones of any civil action launched against the City and other parties.
In years past, the City used a license issuing formula to is-sue taxicab owners’ licences, which was predicated on stud-ies of market factors such as the number of calls received and serviced during an average 24-hour period, holiday traf-fic, conventions, major events etc., just to name a few, bal-anced against the need of taxicab industry members to earn a fair and reasonable living.
After many studies, it was determined that Toronto would use an issuing formula of one taxi for ever 850 citizens, which met the requirements of consumer need by including perhaps too many taxicabs on any given day, while falling somewhat short during periods of high service demand. This provided overall a tolerable service level, with a reasonable opportunity for our members to earn a living and support themselves and their families.
With Toronto’s population of today being approximately
2,700,000, according to 2016 federal population statistics, if you applied the 1-850 issuing formula, the City requires 3,176 taxicabs. Unfortunately, a few years ago the City de-cided to change the formula, deciding an “indicator model” would be more useful. The indicator model used passenger statistics from airplanes, trains and buses and other factors such as conventions, special events etc. to set the number of taxicabs.
The shortcoming of an indicator model is that the City cannot possibly know how many consumers from those ar-eas would require taxicab service and the industry mem-bership had no other evidence to show what numbers were needed either, other than continually showing their incomes were going down week by week. With the indictor model in place, the City went up to about 5,500 taxicabs owners’ licences, which was 2,324 more licenced taxicabs than a re-sponsible licensing formula would indicate in today’s mar-ketplace.
It is my opinion that the City went to the indicator model mainly for two reasons. Number one was to make more li-cense issuing revenues and the second was to address the complaints of some cab drivers that it was hard to acquire plate and they wanted no part of paying an open market value to purchase the licence.
This is the essential history surrounding taxicab own-ers’ licencing, so let’s come to the present-day fiasco of the City’s licensing regulation. Keeping in mind I do not have access to the exact figures, you can be reasonably sure that they are very close.
Presently, the City of Toronto has issued licences to the following: 50,000-plus Private Transportation Company li-cences; 5,500 taxicab owners’ licences, 1,200 livery licences and approximately 750 Greater Toronto Airport Authority
(GTAA) taxicabs and liveries, who are allowed to pick up in the City without paying City licensing fees. These numbers do not include some several hundred illegal and unlicensed vehicles picking up in the City daily.
Just the licensed vehicles under this new regime add up to 57,450 operators trying to eat from the same pie!
If you do a per capita license issuing formula on these numbers, you will find 2,700,000 residents divided by 57,450 Vehicles-for-Hire, you end up with licensing ratio of one vehicle for ever 47 citizens, a patently outrageous state of affairs. In fact, if anyone at city hall bothered to study these numbers in any detail at all, they would most likely find there are dozens and dozens of vehicles available for every single consumer requiring Vehicle-for-Hire servicing.
So, the question I would ask of the City, and I am sure a judge would be curious to have answered, is how can you explain the number of vehicles you have licensed? How do these outrageous numbers fit indicator model that you claim balances consumer need and the ability for a taxicab driver to earn a living?
Of course, there is no logical explanation, the City is in violation of its own license issuing indicator model and, further, this was done without providing reasonable notice it was planning to completely change the landscape of the taxicab industry and without any offer of compensation. I believe there is a strong case to be made that the City abused its regulatory responsibilities in licensing the vehicle-for-hire industry. Based on this and other statute conflicts and violations we could produce, I believe there is good reason to hope for a successful outcome in the courts.
I remain,Gerald H. Manley
Do the math: 60,000 taxis don’t add up
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Politicians ignoring the devastating financial impact on taxis• from page 2which ended abruptly when he in-formed the passenger he could not travel straight down King to a res-taurant.
“He stopped the ride. And I lost my spot, too,” he relates. “When I wanted to turn right, he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I’m in a rush.’”
He says conditions are such that,
“Every day I see a guy gone”, with a few drivers losing their mort-gages, and others having to, “drop their children out of university, and ask them to go to work. These are the facts in this industry,” he says. “How these people have suf-fered.”
Wienhold relates that with Ham-ilton Council’s licensing of Uber
under open entry, “you see long queues of taxicabs all over the city.” He estimates the 1,200 li-censed taxi drivers have each tak-en a $10,000 hit in yearly income.
“These politicians, they take photo opp’s for every food bank, then they turn around and they do this to cab drivers -- just about the most marginalized people in this city, without batting an eye,” he complains.
Valverde says Toronto cabbies have lost “a chunk of money to Uber, maybe half.”
“I travel the whole city. Busi-ness is down to the bottom of the toilet,” he relates.
“The only thing that’s saving me is I’m working with a WheelTrans contract (with Co-Op/Crown).”
With Lyft’s arrival he adds, “It will get worse before it gets better. It’s sad, but it’s the truth.
“I feel for the longest time we were like the scapegoat (for the City), and if anything goes wrong it’s always the cab industry’s fault. There’s a stigma to being a cab driver. We’re not treated as profes-sionals, or with respect.”
More than 15 years on the road, a Beck driver named Elias says, “The taxi business has been quiet since the coming of Uber. It’s get-ting worse by the day.”
He points to “so many costs” including insurance, maintenance,
brokerage dues, gas, and parking, not borne by TNC drivers to the same extent.
“Does anybody care about taxi drivers?” Sikand asks. “Right now it’s the supposed busiest time of the year, and my drivers tell me it’s really hard to make a living. And cars are sitting in the garage at this time of year -- especially at night.”
“I can see stress on their faces, and you can see it on mine, too. Fleets are dying. I don’t know how long fleets can survive.”
So where does the taxi industry turn now?
“To the courts,” Eisenberg says.“We’re not waiting for the City
to do something for us, because they won’t. The City is interested in the money it can generate from us,” he alleges. “The taxi industry is dead as far as the City is con-cerned.
“Hopefully, the taxi industry will smarten up and band together and fight the City. The only course we’ve got left is in the courts. They won’t listen.”
Eisenberg, and veteran owner/operator Gerry Manley are among those who believe there is ample proof of negligence on the part of the City, as it implemented the VFH bylaw with promises of, “a level playing field” between taxis and TNC’s.
“Everything the City did through the years was documented. That’s No. 1. There is evidence,” he sug-gests. “The City says it has a right to do all this stuff. Possibly they do.
“The City doesn’t care, but the courts might. That’s our last re-sort. Sue the City for billions of dollars.”
He points out that the industry has had a few victories over the City in court down through the years, but stresses, “You’ve got to have a good case.”
Manley maintains the new by-law is, “full of unfairness, viola-tions, and conflicts of senior stat-ute, and is discriminatory against taxi owners and/or drivers, violat-ing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom.”
“It is the City’s fault,” Hosse-inioun agrees. “Why are we not going after them? Nobody wants to do anything, because we need money.”
Others suggest the industry would be fighting a losing battle, because it would have to prove negligence on the part of the City, and that a social contract existed between the City and taxi opera-tors. What’s more, they note the industry doesn’t have the deep pockets for a drawn-out court battle, should the City begin filing
appeals.To date, there has been no real
progress in a 2015 class action suit filed by a Toronto cab driver, nor in an Ottawa court action.
Of going to court, Sikand scoffs, “Who has the money? Nobody will give any money.”
“Even if we have a case, you need money -- hundreds of thou-sands of dollars. It could go to a second or, third level. The City has money. So if we go to the Supreme Court, they will take it to Appeals Court.”
And while the Toronto Taxi Al-liance did win a partial concession in court in 2014, he adds, “It is very hard to get the industry (on the same page). There are how many brokerages, five or six, and they don’t get together. And, there is no single person who has the right stuff to bring every stake-holder together and have a meet-ing.”
Wienhold suggests such talk of law suits probably won’t go any-where.
“Most of the people, I think, feel there’s hardly any point. It will go on forever and in the end you will probably lose,” he says.
“(But), you just don’t toss peo-ple out on the sidewalk, especially not because Uber comes in and says, ‘We’re changing the whole way you do business.”’
But Eisenberg says he and others are working on it, “and we’re not going away.” He claims the City willingly told owners the plate represents their “taxi driver’s pen-sion”, and adds, “there was staff there to witness it, and they’re still around and confirm that’s what the City said.
“I want what’s coming to me. I earned it,” he adds.
“Either you grandfather every-body, or compensate the taxi in-dustry. And it’s not only the own-ers, they should be compensating the drivers.”
These politicians, they take photo opp’s for every food bank, then they turn around and they do this to cab drivers – just about the most marginalized people in this city, without batting an eye.
9 January 2018
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Minnan-Wong meddling will not be missed• from page 4would be receptive to what needs to be done in the industry.
“The only downfall to this is, he’s running provincially in the same riding.”
Ex-shift driver Peter McSherry, similarly, “can’t see any benefit to having Mr. Minnan-Wong remain on Council.”
“I would say he has been highly predatory,” he alleges. “He learned certain things from Howard Mos-coe, and I think he thought he could turn them into religion.
“(But) I think Moscoe would have left the industry something. Minnan-Wong wouldn’t leave you a nickel. He’s going to take every-thing he can get from these (Stan-dard plate owners), who dedicated their lives to earn something as small as a taxi plate. They devoted their lives to this. They didn’t go home to their families.”
Many industry leaders feel Min-nan-Wong bought in early to Mos-coe’s “hidden agenda” of wanting to devalue Standard plates, take them back, and then deregulate the industry.
Reti recalls the 1998 press con-ference unveiling the Ambassa-dor Taxi program, when Minnan-Wong stated, “The plates belong to the City of Toronto, we do not want people to make money off the metal plates. To allow the ex-isting system was a mistake in the first place. We want to increase the number of plates.”
Many times, Minnan-Wong and Moscoe boasted of this as a vic-tory for taxi drivers. They claimed it got drivers out from under the thumb of “greedy” owners and brokers, and turned them into in-dependent operators with pride of ownership. But Reti stresses, re-cipients of the Ambassador plate
(some of them on the waiting list for more than 20 years) received, not their cab driver’s pension, but a “worthless work permit”. Mean-while, the City saturated the streets with 1,400 Ambassadors without an issuing formula, irrevocably damaging the industry.
He notes Minnan-Wong deemed it “a mistake” allowing a taxi li-cense to acquire significant value, and alleges that city hall subse-quently, “became obsessed with trying to diminish plate values.”
“Creating two classes of licens-ing doing exactly the same work was the first step, which eventu-ally led to allowing Uber to com-pete unfairly against taxis,” he adds.
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Toronto Council plays tough with Uber
by Mike BeggsToronto City Council is demanding that Uber disclose how many of its
residents were affected by the company’s vast 2016 data breach.Councillor Janet Davis put forward this motion in early December, say-
ing Torontonians have a right to know if their personal data was compro-mised as a result of the breach, which affected 57 million users world-wide. The motion received unanimous approval.
On November 21, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged that in December of 2016 two hackers had accessed user data stored on a third-party cloud-based service. While several other multinationals have had serious breaches (Verifone, Arby’s, Sak’s Fifth Avenue), Uber made mat-ters eminently worse by paying hackers $100,000 to conceal the breach.
And regulators around the world are now taking Uber to task over this latest scandal, in a year of bad press.
“The City has given (Uber) incredible access to a huge market here in Toronto. I am hoping they recognize the value of our licensing agreement and abide by our request,” Davis stated.
Her motion directed the City manager to demand information from Uber, and to ask how and when the company will inform drivers and rid-ers affected by the breach.
Uber has not responded to requests from several Canadian municipali-ties to disclose how many of its 2 million Canadian users were affected and where, according to a staff report on this item.
Under its 2016 licensing agreement, Uber is obligated to protect the personal data it collects from users, and to be able to produce all data or records to the City or police for investigations within 30 days of the re-quest. The ridesharing giant could face fines, or suspensions if it violates the City’s licensing agreement.
Uber management said the company will work with the City on this issue.
In an e-mail to the Toronto Star, Uber spokesperson Susie Heath said the privacy of its riders and drivers is of paramount importance to the company, and that Uber is working closely with regulatory and govern-ment authorities around the world.
However, few taxi industry leaders feel anything will come of the City’s demands on Uber.
“Are the 30 days up yet,” asks owner Andy Reti, sarcastically. “Or will it have automatic independent extensions? The money will still be coming in, breach, or no breach. Right?”
“This is just more smoke and mirrors, giving the impression the City of Toronto actually cares about consumer privacy, whereas they only care
• see page 10
10 January 2018
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To the editor,
Thank you for your ongo-ing support of the taxi industry in Toronto,
through the publication of your monthly newspaper Taxi News.
These past two years I have read Taxi News as a resource, an insightful look at the ground trans-portation industry and the condi-
tions under which taxi workers operate in one of the greatest cities on earth, Toronto Canada.
In the December 2017 edition of Taxi News, I was particularly struck by the lamentations of in-dustry members from all walks of life, at the failure of political gov-ernance and municipal administra-tion, to address the inherent imbal-
ances posed by a Vehicle for Hire regulatory system that is in clear contravention of Charter principles, of equality and fundamental justice.
Today’s decision by the Euro-pean Court of Justice, that Uber must be regulated like traditional taxis, confirms that taxi workers in Toronto have a reasonable expec-tation to have Uber drivers adhere
to the same rules and regulations that the traditional taxi industry members have adhered to as per municipal regulation and all im-portant public and worker safety.
Lamentations will only take you so far taxi workers. Our Courts and Tribunals are an evidence-based system. Without industry members gathering their evidence and band-
ing together to go forward into the legal arena, nothing will change at Toronto City Hall, due to implicit bias against Toronto taxi workers.
Best regards to all for a safe and Happy Holiday season.
Patricia ReillyOffice Administrator
iTaxiworkers Association(416) 597-6838
European Court of Justice ruling on Uber sends hopeful message for Toronto’s taxi industry
To the editor,
The day the City of Toronto, along with other GTHA municipalities, licensed Uber, any hope of showing them the door evaporated.
It matters not a fig what unfolds in jurisdictions around the world, in our neck-of-the-woods, the company we love to hate is here to stay. It is most unlikely the pooh-bahs at City Hall will im-pose stiffer regulations on Uber, certainly not when they are bent on deregulating the traditional taxi industry.
Though a hackneyed cliché, it is highly applicable here: Follow the money. Why would the City undertake any action that disrupts the flow of revenue into its coffers from Uber?
Peter D. Pellier
Follow the money Driver’s dash cams• from page 6
This is a violation of the bylaw and potentially breaches the confidentiality of the consumer. Access to any image taken by the mandated in-car cameras can only be legally downloaded by police services, in part, to protect the confidentiality of the consumer. Mr. Baumber’s dash cam has the ability to download images on to a driver’s personal cell phone and that is a serious potential breach of our customers’ right to privacy.
This needs to be nipped in the bud before our entire in-car cam-era security program becomes tainted with other drivers doing the same. Leave the in-car camera image downloads to the police ser-vice, not to the discretion of any vehicles-for-hire driver.
Gerry Manley
Letters to The Editor
• from page 9
about that $6.5 million they are presently collecting through the 30 cents per fare fee they are charging (Uber),” long-time owner/
operator Gerry Manley chimes in.Mississauga owner Peter Pellier concurs,
“Now that Uber is contributing handsomely to the City’s coffers, it’s highly unlikely any action will be taken against them, regard-
less of the scandalous conduct. So much for Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states, “Every individual is equal before and under the law. And so much for justice.”
Meanwhile, the Star reports that the Fed-eral Privacy Commission has opened a formal investigation into the Uber breach. Heath said they are cooperating with the Commission.
Breach of privacy
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11 January 2018
Press releaseTORONTO, Nov. 29 - Centennial College is launching a new indus-try training course of interest to taxi drivers, as well as Uber and Lyft operators, who wish to earn an “accessible endorsement” on their vehicle-for-hire (VfH) licence.
The two-day course, taught at the college’s Ashtonbee Campus in Scarborough, provides drivers with disability awareness, legal requirements and practical training on the proper methods for assisting passengers with disabilities and wheelchair securement in vehicles.
“Anyone who takes our training and completes our certificate can get an official endorsement from the City of Toronto recognizing them as an accessible driver,” says Janna Erichsen, Chair of Part-time Learning in Centennial’s School of Transportation. “We are one of only three organizations au-thorized by the City to teach the course.”
Centennial worked with Spinal Cord Injury Ontario to develop accessible vehicle curriculum that meets the strict standards set out by the City of Toronto’s licensing and standards department. All of the course instructors and class-
room demonstrators have a “lived experience,” that is, possess a dis-ability and have first-hand experi-ence using accessible services.
Centennial’s Accessible Vehicle Training course takes 12 hours to complete and is taught over a
Saturday and Sunday to accom-modate working drivers. Learners demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter by writing an exam at the end of the course.
The Accessible Vehicle Train-ing course (CEAV-100) is running
during upcoming weekends in De-cember and in the new year. For information, contact Centennial College’s School of Transporta-tion at 416-289-5207 and press 8.SOURCE: Centennial College
BECK TAXI WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL OF ITS DRIVERS FOR A WONDERFUL YEAR!
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Beck Taxi wishes its drivers and their families a joyous 2018 filled with good health, love and happiness. Thank you for going above and beyond the call of duty to help make Beck Taxi the #1 brokerage in Toronto! Keep up the great work everyone, it is very much appreciated!
Crush of increasing competition isn’t working• from page 3
Right off the bat, he suggests the business is going to be split largely between Uber and Lyft, with what-ever residual business left to cabs. He foresees many drivers using both the Uber and Lyft app, noting there’s even a special app avail-able (named “Maestro”), which, “sits on top of those two, and co-ordinates them.”
A1 Airlines taxi driver Hari
Sharma complains that while peo-ple in the cab industry have been following the rules all these years, “It kind of looks like with Uber and Lyft coming in, (the munici-palities) are rewriting all of the by-law for them.”
He, like many, sees customer safety as a concern with TNC’s, stressing, “We have to go through a lot of training to get a license, in-cluding CPR .”
Surge pricing is another point of
contention.“I think it’s uncalled for, espe-
cially for customers who are basi-cally stranded,” he comments.
“At the airport we are all flat rates. Tory said we can charge more in peak periods, but we won’t do it because it’s just un-ethical to do that. It’s not the customer’s fault, because of the weather.”
Of Lyft’s arrival, Oakville own-er/operator Al Prior suggests, “it
will cheapen our industry”. He stresses there’s a fixed overhead to operate a car, and estimates that each driver must do a volume of $50,000 to $60,000 in revenues just to pay themselves $15,000 to $20,000 a year.
“People think you drive some-body somewhere, and it’s all prof-it. But it’s not,” he says.
He observes “there’s no way” the GTA needs the huge number of cars that are coming on the road
– with Uber X, Lyft, and other TNC’s utilizing many part-time drivers, and newcomers to the in-dustry.
“I definitely think it will have an impact in the short term, and long term. It drives the profes-sional people out of the business,” he says. “I’ve been working here since 1974. I consider this to be a professional job, and for some rea-son the public refuses to see it that way.”
Centennial announces accessible vehicle-for-hire training
12 January 2018
Industry must unite and fight for justice• from page 52013 they went even further by allowing Uber to operate for three years without any licensing or enforcement. Only as of July 2016 were Uber and other Private Transportation Companies (PTC) finally LEGALLY permitted to operate and charge less than a taxicab for performing EXACT-LY the same service. This is a lot more than ill will. In my opinion it is actionable in court. As a matter of interest, at the time of this writ-ing taxi operators in Montreal are on the verge of getting compen-sated for their loss of plate value and business also caused by Uber.
In order to follow Minnan-Wong’s “logic” we must go back to 1957. This is when Metropoli-tan Toronto was created by amal-gamating 13 area municipalities. At the time, the Licensing Com-mission handled all taxi matters and a taxi plate had no value. The Commission was a quasi-judicial organization with wide ranging powers and was deemed to be the owner of the taxi plates. As a mat-ter of fact, when a cabby wanted to get out of the business he had to hand the plate back to the Com-mission which kept a “secret wait-ing list” for re-issuing the license.
The situation lasted till 1963 when Metro Toronto issued cab licenses according to a bylaw, al-lowed the sale of a taxicab and created an “official waiting list” for those industry members who wished to be issued a taxi plate. I believe of the many turning points over the decades, not clarifying true ownership of the licence was the most egregious mistake by the industry. Between 1963 and 1976 eventually there were four dif-ferent waiting lists with varying criteria and eligibility conditions for obtaining a plate. The “new” system was equally unfair. As a result, some fleet owners received numerous licenses almost on an annual basis, while some drivers waited over 20 years. The system was rigged in favour of the big fleet owners and was a fiasco. It was rife with allegations of cor-ruption culminating in a Police investigation of the Commission in 1978.
The “mistake” Minnan- Wong was referring to was that a license acquired significant intrinsic val-ue over the years. Over the de-cades city hall was obsessed with trying to diminish plate values. The ’98 preliminary report clearly states this aim. In 1998 the aver-age was about $95,000 for a plate. The Ambassador taxi, with no value, was explicitly designed to bring down that price. City Hall in their efforts to wage war on cabbies ignored the law of supply and demand. As they restricted the supply of Standard plates, values
soared to over $300,000. The value for a plate was based
on the fact that it could be leased, generating a monthly income for those who were no longer able to drive. For years the Commission told a cabby, “congratulations on receiving your pension”. Imagine the chutzpah of people who got into the business and worked for decades finally reaching retire-ment age and not wanting to sit behind the wheel anymore? The City was vehemently opposed to that. So, the Ambassador taxi was to be strictly owner driven with no possibility of leasing the plate. De-regulation was a constant threat coming out of the mouth of Howard Moscoe, the chief archi-tect of the Ambassador program. However, the greatest blow to the industry occurred when Uber came on the scene around 2013 and incomes and plate values plummeted. As a matter of inter-est, an article in the Toronto Star in December 2017 states that Uber has cut into the revenues of the Toronto Transit Commission as well.
Between 1957 and 2017 the original 1,503 Metro Plates in-creased to over 5,000 “officially” licensed taxis, limousines and wheelchair vans. With the entry of Uber, Lyft, Airport taxis and limos and out of town bandits it’s estimated that today there over 50,000 additional vehicles-for-hire plugging up the streets of To-ronto. This is a grotesque inflation of conventional taxi license issu-ing. It is a universally accepted policy among regulators to issue licenses according to a formula: about 850 per population. Under this formula, Toronto has a popu-lation of 2.7 million requiring 3,176 taxis. There is NO NEED for over 50,000 vehicles to serve the public.
While “serving the public”, city hall was raking in exceed-ingly large amounts from its taxis and limousines. Currently Uber is estimated to contribute $350-450,000 per month to the City cof-fers. A constant criticism from the industry was (still is) city hall’s disregard for provincially man-dated licensing fees based on cost recovery. One example was the exorbitant price of a transfer fee for a taxi license, reaching at one time well over $5,000. For those readers who are unaware, Uber is to pay 30 cents for each ride. The question is where is this money going?
The ’98 Reforms brought about the Ambassador taxi and the elim-ination of the issuing formula. In 2006 the Province created the City of Toronto Act (COTA) giving the City wide ranging powers with regards to its taxi industry. To-ronto’s bad behaviour towards its
cabbies now became an onslaught. In 2011 another taxi reform took place causing additional prob-lems, most notably the creation of a special category of wheelchair accessible vans. The hardship for those who bought into this pro-gram is hard to describe. By 2015 the Ambassador program proved to have failed and the wheelchair accessible taxis were also an un-feasible business model. City hall admitted the mistake of the Ambassador taxi and eventually changed the rules making it the same as the Standard cabs. In its war on the cab industry, the City caused many casualties. However, they were not done yet.
By 2016, Uber and similar companies had been operating il-legally in Toronto for three years. It was the City’s responsibility to regulate and enforce rules, and prevent unlicensed and uninsured drivers and vehicles from “serving the public”. But the war on taxis was more important than the safe-ty of the public. In July 2016 To-ronto legalized Uber and similar companies under the heading of Private Transportation Companies (PTC). It is most noteworthy that the majority of the bylaw changes were adopted from a submission by Uber. The new rules allowed PTCs to charge less than taxicabs with far less restrictions as to how
they operate, types of vehicles they use and most importantly, in-surance requirements. Equally im-portant is to remember that John Tory, our current Mayor declared that “Uber is here to stay”.
In my opinion most of Toronto’s actions are cause for a legal chal-lenge. I would like to repeat that at the time of this writing, Mon-treal cabbies are on the verge get-
ting compensated for their loss of business and plate value caused by Uber. In the November issue of Taxi News my friend Gerry Manley put forth a proposal how to fund a war chest against the City. In view of the Montreal ex-perience against the authorities, I believe the timing is perfect for Toronto’s beleaguered taxi indus-try to unite and fight for justice.
Committee members are: Jon Burnside, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Frank Di Giorgio,
Jim Karygiannis (Vice Chair), Frances Nunziata, Cesar Palacio (Chair) MEETINGS IN COMMITTEE ROOM 1Secretariat Contact: Julie Lavertu, 10th floor, West Tower, City Hall
100 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON M5H 2N2 email: [email protected], or by phone at 416-397-4592 or by fax at 416-392-1879
L&S MEETING SCHEDULE 2018
The following is the list of scheduled meetings of the Licensing and Standards Committee for 2018
January 22, 2018 - 9:30am
February 26, 2018 - 9:30am
April 10, 2018 - 9:30am
May 4, 2018 - 9:30am
June 14, 2018 - 9:30am
July 6, 2018 - 9:30am
Monday January 22, 2018