How Toronto missed its opportunity to lead on Uber regulations
Financialpost.com
Sept. 17, 2015
By Kristine Owram
Uber Canada and Toronto’s biggest taxi company agree that some form of regulation is necessary for all ride services in the city. However, a decision by Toronto’s licensing committee to reject recommended regulations could have the opposite effect, leaving Uber in legal limbo.
Speaking at a Transport Futures conference in Toronto Thursday, both Uber and Beck Taxi vocalized their support for regulation, although they disagreed on its scope.
“The role for regulation is to say, ‘Okay, what’s important to a city from a regulatory point of view?’” Uber Canada General Manager Ian Black said.
“It’s public safety, it’s consumer protection, and that’s probably about it. So let’s put frameworks in place to ensure those things are being met.”
This includes reducing red tape for taxicabs, he added.
“There’s probably room to lower the burden on taxi regulations,” Black said. “There’s a whole bunch of rules that don’t make any sense and should be gotten rid of, but it’s also worth noting that to try and put UberX into taxi regulations simply doesn’t work.”
The UberX model is based on people who drive only a few hours a week, usually to make some extra money on the side when they’re not at their primary job. The company’s argument is that, if they’re regulated in the same way taxi drivers are, with the same costly municipal licences and insurance, there will be no more incentive for those drivers to sign up.
Although the Canadian taxi industry disputes this, and has been pushing for a level playing field, the operations manager at Beck Taxi was conciliatory Thursday.
“There’s this desire to pit taxis against Uber. That’s not what this is. It’s not innovation versus the status quo,” Beck’s Kristine Hubbard said during a panel discussion with Black and representatives from AutoShare and RideCo. (The panel was moderated by the Financial Post.)
Hubbard supports Toronto city staff’s recommendation to amend the definition of a taxicab and taxicab brokerage to ensure Uber is included - a proposal that was also supported by the city’s licensing committee Wednesday.
“We want to make sure there is oversight there, because we are talking about moving precious cargo,” Hubbard said.
The thing is, Uber doesn’t entirely disagree. In an interview after the panel discussion, Black reiterated his support for regulation and criticized the city’s licensing committee for rejecting the bulk of the recommendations that would have regulated Uber, albeit in a less-stringent way than the taxi industry.
“Uber is stepping forward and saying we need regulation,” Black said.
“Hopefully councillors hear that there is a regulated path forward and that will be a much better path than continuing to have ride-sharing operate as an unregulated activity.”
Toronto city council can overrule the committee’s decision in a vote that will be held Sept. 30. However, if council decides to side with Uber’s opponents, it will leave the company in the same regulatory grey zone it has occupied for the past year.
Black wouldn’t say what Uber will do if council rejects the recommendations, but it’s safe to assume the company isn’t going anywhere.
In the meantime, the city missed an opportunity to accept the inevitable and welcome Uber into the regulatory fold.
“I think it was a missed opportunity to send a signal that Toronto’s a forward-looking city that embraces innovation,” Black said.
