Uber’s draft bylaw angers taxi lobby

City insists it will write rules, but cabbies discover company pushing - in detail - for special legal category.

Thestar.com
March 29, 2016
By Betsy Powell

Uber Canada crossed a line when it submitted a draft bylaw to the city’s licensing division, says the head of a taxi lobby group.

Next week, municipal licensing staff will release the much-anticipated proposed regulations for ride-sharing services and the taxi industry. City council is set to vote on the staff recommendations in May.

“I don’t think councillors are going to like the concept of a foreign, private sector company writing the legislation to staff,” Rita Smith, executive director of the Toronto Taxi Alliance, said Tuesday.

Uber Canada spokeswoman Susie Heath said it is “standard practice” for stakeholders to provide input to a government drawing up new laws.

“Uber and all parties involved in the ground transportation industry were invited to make submissions on regulations for consideration by ML&S, (Municipal Licensing and Standards),” Heath wrote in email.

“We regularly share examples of ridesharing regulations with regulators to help them better understand how jurisdictions around the world are regulating ridesharing.”

Smith said submitting a “full deck of pre-written legislation” was not standard practice.

“I have never seen this level of detail before, at any level of government,” she said. “This has been Uber’s stealth method of operations in many other jurisdictions.”

The Uber document was included in a batch of emails Smith obtained through a freedom of information request.

Last August, Chris Schafer, Uber Canada’s public policy manager, sent an email to licensing executive director Tracey Cook that included a “City of Toronto Transportation Network Company Services Bylaw,” prepared by Uber.

According to the document, Uber wants the city to set up a separate category for itself - called Transportation Network Company, or TNC.

“TNCs or TNC drivers are not common carriers or commercial motor vehicles (as defined in the Highway Traffic Act of the Province of Ontario),” the Uber document states.

“A TNC driver shall not be required to register the vehicle such driver uses for TNC services as a commercial or for hire vehicles.”

Cook said Tuesday that the city will be doing the writing of any bylaw, but has “welcomed input from all stakeholders, including through a dedicated email account. We have received written submissions from numerous taxi and limousine stakeholders.

“We take all submissions into consideration - no one submission carries more weight than another.”

The taxi industry is adamant the only way cabbies can compete with Uber is if regulations are identical, including the requirement that drivers have costly commercial insurance.

“Unfortunately for Uber, no matter what by-law the city passes, insurance companies view all transportation of passengers for compensation exactly the same,” Smith wrote in an email.

“Toronto can pass by-laws until the cows come home; they cannot make insurance companies insure these cars. And they won’t.”

Smith said taxi industry representatives who attended an licensing “stakeholder” meeting last month considered it a “sham . . . Perhaps that is because MLS had already written its report based on Uber’s desired legislation.”

On Tuesday, Uber Canada launched a campaign asking Uber supporters to urge councillors to support “smart” and “progressive” regulations.