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'Frustrating' wait for new taxi regulations: Tory

Torontosun.com
Dec. 10, 2015
By Don Peat

The mayor fended off accusations he is letting the meter run on changes to the taxi industry by saying he’s put “the pedal to the metal” to get new regulations.

“Nobody is trying to delay anything,” Mayor John Tory told the Toronto Sun on Thursday, a day after hundreds of cabs and limos clogged streets in protest. “Why would we do that? We are moving as quickly as we can.”

But pro-taxi Councillor Jim Karygiannis accused Tory and his office of trying to delay addressing the taxi industry’s concerns.

He compared the mayor’s approach to helping taxis to his old criticism of how the Canadian government dealt with veterans: “Triple D - delay, deny, until they die.”

“This is the stuff that the mayor’s office is practising against the industry,” Karygiannis said.

Licensing staff are expected to role out the new rules in the new year.

Those rules, Tory predicted, will lead to cab drivers being “considerably less regulated” while adding regulation to Uber’s operations.

“Things will be better,” he said. “They’ll never be perfect ... I’m aiming for something where they’re both happy about certain parts of it and unhappy about other parts of it.”

“One of the greatest frustrations” that he’s encountered so far in his term is that the rules aren’t ready yet, Tory said.

“I wish for the sake of the (taxi) drivers that we could have had a new regulation the day after we asked for it,” he said. “This is an incredibly complicated area.”

Karygiannis is pushing to get the Toronto Police Services Board to add the Uber issue to its agenda in the new year.

“One of the things we’ve got to make sure is that the cavalry - this is the police - comes onside and starts charging the Uber drivers,” he said.

One taxi driver is facing a laundry list of charges after a Toronto Police officer was knocked down during Wednesday’s taxi strike.

During the protest, an officer on a bicycle was struck by a cab on Yonge St. and ended up taken to hospital for minor injuries, police said.

The driver was charged with failing to stop for police, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, obstructing police, using cellphone/handheld device while driving and failing to stop at scene of an accident.

Twenty-one other taxi drivers were ticketed by police during the protest: