Uber blasts treatment at the hands of Calgary's city hall

Calgarysun.com
Feb. 8, 2016
By Shawn Logan

Public demand for Uber is being smothered by red tape from city hall, says the online ride sharing service.

With a new bylaw that would govern Uber and services like it slated to come before council Feb. 22, the company says the plan being pitched by city administration would regulate it right out of the Calgary market, and are aiming to change minds on council ahead of the vote.

Ramit Kar, general manager of Uber Alberta, stopped short of saying the “onerous” draft bylaw is designed to elbow the controversial service out of Calgary, but said if nothing changes over the next two weeks, Uber will have to pull up stakes.

“No ride sharing service could operate under rules like these,” he said.

“We’re urging council to really look at what’s behind this.”

Kar said Uber is troubled over four sticking points he believes impose an undue level of regulation on the service and its drivers, the majority of whom would only drive less than 10 hours per week.

According to Uber, the draft bylaw, which still requires council assent, would require drivers to pay almost $500 in annual administrative fees, obtain comprehensive vehicle inspections twice per year, require Calgary police background checks for drivers rather than a national service it requires in 70 other jurisdictions, and provide what Kar said is an overwhelming amount of trip data.

Local Uber customers awoke Monday morning to a message from the company on their app, urging them to contact their city councillor to scrap the proposed rules.

“Despite our efforts to work collaboratively, city staff have drafted unworkable rules that would prevent us from coming back to Calgary,” the rallying cry read in part.

“These city proposed rules create far too much red tape. Calgarians looking to drive and earn some extra income for their families would have to pay almost $500 in fees and administrative costs for unnecessary processes in order to partner with Uber.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi was skeptical about the threat from Uber, and said the city’s requirements are not measurably different than Edmonton’s model, adopted in the Alberta capital last month, the first jurisdiction in Canada to legalize the service.

“They’ve made that threat a number of times and a number of jurisdictions,” he said.

“As far as I know they’ve never actually followed through on that threat anywhere.

However, Kar said the company would gladly accept a similar model to Edmonton’s, but what the city is calling for takes it too far by imposing expense and effort on drivers, the majority of whom are merely part time.

“In Edmonton we’ve found about two-thirds of the drivers drive less than 10 hours per week,” he said.

“We did make some concessions in Edmonton, but it’s a workable framework - that’s not the case here.