Waterloo region to work more closely with police on Uber

Official says they've dealt with dozens of complaints, almost all from licensed taxi drivers

CBC.ca
Dec. 1, 2015

An official with Waterloo Region says her staff are working with local police to better enforce traffic and parking bylaws, as a local taxi group pushes for a harder stance against Uber.

 Kris Fletcher, director of administrative services for the region, says the manager of licensing and enforcement services reached out to police on Friday to discuss their ability to lay charges when cars are illegally parked in taxi stands.

"So we are having conversations between enforcement agencies about how we can better support the particular bylaws that may be at play," she says.

The taxi-stand issue led local taxi drivers to write an open letter last week, asking officials to do more to prevent Uber drivers from operating in the region.

The letter from the Waterloo Region Taxi Alliance stemmed from an incident several weeks ago, when an unlicensed taxi pulled into a taxi line-up outside a Waterloo student bar.

An argument erupted because drivers didn't want the unlicensed cab in the queue, and eventually campus security had to step in.

'Because we're legal'

The alliance says it has received no feedback from the city. If the region doesn't take action, it says it's afraid cab drivers will.

"If we file a complaint, we would like to have an answer back," alliance president Bill Chester says. "We would like to have the city stand up for its stakeholders and support its stakeholders because we're legal, and everything Uber has done to this date has been illegal."

Fletcher says the region is still working to revamp its bylaws, and until then the region has in fact been dealing with 68 complaints one by one. So far they've issued 59 warnings and laid six charges, five of which are expected to result in legal proceedings.

Fletcher says almost all the complaints come from licensed taxi drivers.

Officials are expected to provide regional committees with an information report in December about the bylaw review, but what the region does may depend on how quickly the province moves to change its rules.

"How far ahead does the region want to be with respect to their taxi bylaw in light of what is happening in other jurisdictions?" she says.