“No matter what happens, we’re screwed”
“‘Capping’ is another word for ‘lying'”
To Taxi operator Behrouz Khamseh, it makes no difference whether Mayor Olivia Chow or Councillor Brad Bradford wins the October 26th election in Toronto.
“No matter what happens, we’re screwed,” Khamseh sighed glumly in a recent interview with Taxi News.
“It turns out, the word ‘capping’ is just another word for ‘lying.’ We have some great cappers in Toronto.”
Like most of the other key people in Toronto’s Taxi industry, Khamseh supported Olivia Chow in the 2023 by-election after John Tory resigned. Toronto’s 5,500 licensed Taxis exploded with over 80,000 Uber and Lyft vehicles when Tory oversaw removal of the cap on Vehicles for Hire in 2016.
“Olivia always opened her remarks saying that her father had been a Taxi driver, and joked that she needed us to get around because she did not drive. We had two meetings with her, and we believed she would be the one to fix the rideshare mess John Tory left behind.
“But when it came to actually capping the number of Vehicles for Hire, she wouldn’t do it. She won’t do it.”
Given that Chow’s main opponent in 2026 is Uber-supporter Brad Bradford, Khamseh holds out no hope that the ground transportation situation in Toronto will improve. Bradford voted against capping the number of Uber vehicles in 2023, and in 2026 the Trillium reports that “A spokesperson for Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford’s mayoral campaign said he would not introduce a cap if he secured the city’s top job in the upcoming election.
“Capping it is not a congestion strategy. It is a headline,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
2024: Olivia Chow attempted to cap not cut the number of ride hail cars at 83K to review the reported negative impacts on congestion, accessibility & workers. Brad Bradford openly supported not the drivers, but Uber and Lyft, voting against the proposal. But rip out bike lanes.🤷♀️
— Kristine Hubbard (@KristineHubbard) October 14, 2026
To read NOW Magazine’s comparison list of Chow’s and Bradford’s election promises, click here.
