Cabbies cancel UberX protest for NBA All-Star weekend

Toronto taxi drivers are angry the city won’t launch an injunction to shut down the ride-sharing service, pending new regulations.

Thestar.com
Feb. 10, 2016
By David Rider

A last-ditch appeal by Toronto councillors and tourism officials helped convince taxi industry leaders to call off a protest that would have snarled Toronto streets during the NBA All-Star weekend.

“Emotions overran us ... There will be no strike for the NBA All-Star weekend,” Paul Sekhon, of the newly formed United Taxi Workers Association, told reporters Wednesday at Toronto city hall.

But Sekhon and other taxi representatives, just out of a meeting with city councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam, Janet Davis and Glenn De Baeremaeker, warned the city must take action against UberX or they will take action after the weekend.

“We’re not saying we’re calling (the protest) off forever,” said Sam Moini, president of the Fleet Operators Association.

Before the taxi officials spoke, all three councillors told Toronto via news cameras that UberX - which uses an app to connect passengers with non-professional drivers using their personal vehicles - is illegal and they should not use it this Family Day weekend or any time.

De Baeremaeker called the cheap and popular UberX service unsafe, unfair and illegal. “If you love somebody, do not let them get into an Uber taxi,” urged the Scarborough councillor.

Moini said the meeting marked the first time that cabbies - desperate as their livelihood collapses to competition from unregulated UberX - felt they had really been heard at city hall and got public acknowledgement that the rival service is illegal.

Wong-Tam, whose downtown ward includes the ACC, said of cabbies: “We need to treat them with a level of fairness and a level of respect,” and keep working to level the playing field between them and unregulated UberX drivers.

UberX is grabbing profits from regulated, fee-paying taxis, triggering protests in cities around the world, including Montreal on Wednesday.

About two weeks ago some Toronto taxi representatives started talking about using the international spotlight on the first NBA All-Star game played outside the U.S. to pressure city hall into making a second attempt to get an injunction to shut down Uber.

Last week, city council, led by Mayor John Tory, voted instead to let city staff decide if and when to go to court. The city solicitor had told them it was prudent to wait until city staff release proposed regulations to level the playing field between taxis and Uber, and see if Uber agrees, or risk facing a second loss in court.

The Toronto Taxi Alliance, which along with Beck Taxi had argued against a protest this week, now says it will privately apply for an injunction against Uber.

Sekhon went on early-morning TV Wednesday to say the protest was happening for sure — a convoy of cabs would, during Friday afternoon rush hour, travel down Highway 427 and the Gardiner Expressway and then around the ACC, the hub of NBA activities leading up to Sunday’s game.

Terry Mundell, chief executive of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, was in the meeting with the cabbies.

“Are we breathing a sigh of relief? Absolutely,” Mundell said of a tourism sector that had been afraid a Toronto protest and resulting traffic problems would become the focus of international media descending on the city.