T.O. cabbies want Uber injunction like in Calgary
 
TorontoSun.com
Nov. 21, 2015
Shawn Jeffords

Calgary convinced a court to ban Uber from operating there and Toronto cabbies want their city to do the same.

Toronto Taxi Alliance spokesman Sam Moini said the temporary injunction granted Friday should serve as a lesson to Toronto.

“We have a very powerful bylaw and I’m very confident that it will win in court,” he said. “I think the City of Toronto should take notice of what happened in Calgary and file an injunction against Uber here in Toronto.”

Calgary officials will have to return to court Dec. 17 to argue for a permanent injunction against Uber.

Toronto officials went down this road earlier this year. Judge Sean Dunphy denied the city an injunction in July, saying it’s up to council to bring Uber under its regulatory regime, not the courts to ban the business.

In October, council voted to outlaw Uber under the city’s current taxi and limo rules and to have staff report back by the spring on a way to regulate the ridesharing company.

Moini says Uber is operating illegally in the city and its drivers don’t carry the proper insurance and aren’t subject to the same rigorous inspection rules applied to the taxi industry. That has to change and the courts are the best place to address it, he said.

Beck Taxi operations manager Kristine Hubbard lauded the Calgary decision and called on Mayor John Tory and city council to head back to court.

“We call on the City of Toronto ... to take the next logical step and seek an injunction in the face of Uber’s open defiance of the mayor and council’s policies,” she said in a statement.

Uber spokesman Xavier Van Chau says the city is “already moving forward to create regulations for the close to 20,000 drivers in Toronto who drive with Uber, and a city injunction would strand those drivers and over half a million Toronto riders.”