Taxi protest Wednesday - even though the city grants Uber licence to operate

TorontoSun.com
Aug. 16, 2016
By Jenny Yuen and Daniel Mckenzie

Toronto taxi drivers will go ahead with a protest on Wednesday - even though the city issued Uber a licence to operate under a new regulatory regime.

Paul Sekhon, of the United Taxi Workers Association, said there are no plans to cause traffic headaches when some 800 cabbies take their fight against Uber to the steps of the city’s municipal licensing and standards office - located at 850 Coxwell Ave. - at 7 a.m.

Cabbies have been complaining that the city is moving too slowly in imposing a new regulatory regime - which came into effect July 15 - on Uber.

Why are they protesting when the city issued a private transportation company licence to Uber?

“This is just a political stunt (by the city),” said Paul Sekhon. “The drivers should have been screened and tested before July 15. They’re just trying to fool everyone. They’ve led us in circles and now they’ve fed us this now? We’re going ahead with our protest at full blast. We want to show the city how incompetent the politicians and city staff are and they’re just messing with innocent lives of the taxi drivers. They’ve just dug themselves a bigger hole.”

Will taxis take over the streets?

“We don’t want to clog up the streets,” said Sekhon. “We want to keep it in a civilized professional manner.”

Protest organizers say they have a permit from police to hold the protest and will be shuttling drivers, who will park their cars at the Woodbine Banquet Hall, in buses in order to ensure there’s no gridlock in the area around the protest.

 What do other taxi associations have to say?

“Uber is killing the cab industry, so any effort made by taxis, we’ll be part of it,” said Sajid Mughal of the iTaxiworkers Association. “Months have gone by, enough is enough. We wanted to (have the city) suspend their app until they get their licence.”

“It is not initiative, we didn’t plan it,” said Rita Smith, of the Toronto Taxi Alliance. “We do understand the frustration, to be sure. The city has failed to enforce the law for two years now and inexplicably, Uber has been given all kinds of deadline extensions that certainly the cab industry has not received.”

UBER Canada spokesman Susie Heath

“We were pleased to receive our PTC licence from the City of Toronto today and remain focused on continuing to work with them.”

UBER ISSUED LICENCE

Toronto officials issued a Private Transportation Company (PTC) licence to Uber. Essentially a licence to operate in the city, it’s the first of its kind in Canada.

Here’s what Tracey Cooke, executive director of Toronto’s municipal licensing and standards department, had to say:

• Under a new regulatory regime, the city had to license Uber as a company before it could licence Uber drivers.

 

• Drivers now have to apply for a licence through Uber under the rules of the Vehicle-For-Hire bylaw that was introduced on July 15.

• “The driver has to go through (Uber). (The company) is responsible for doing the screening in the first instance, according to our standards, then all of that information comes to us and we ensure that they’ve been screened according to our standards and will issue a licence.”

 

• Driver screening involves a criminal background check, driver abstract, motor-vehicle inspections, safety standard certificates, and insurance.

• A vehicle must be seven model years or newer.

 

• It’s estimated that Uber had close to 20,000 drivers in the city but will have around 12,000 licensed drivers once they eliminate those whose vehicles don’t comply with the new bylaw.

• The city aims to have the 12,000 current Uber drivers fully licensed by the end of September and new drivers will be added as they apply.

 

Uber will pay $15 for each driver file they submit to the city for a licence