Taxi operator Behrouz Khamseh has been working with Toronto to develop a plan for smooth ground transportation during FIFA 2026. Photo: Taxi News
Behrouz Khamseh is nothing if not doggedly, admirably determined in his approach to the City of Toronto. Photo: YouTube This story was updated at 9am on August 4th with the information that Ontario’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act was amended
Read MoreThe Dutch farmers have been told by their government that a “just transition” to Net Zero means driving them out of business. Farmers use fertilizer, which emits nitrogen. The government says those emissions will have to be reduced by up to 70 percent in just eight years – a demand so radical that most family farms will have to shut down.
Read MoreNo Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard song about prison ever hit me as hard as staring at that structure: it was huge. Thinking about who was in there and why had a sobering effect.
Contained inside were those who for whatever reason stepped over society’s line of freedom and decency. Some by choice, some out of rage and some simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They deserve to be in there, some would say. “He’s innocent.” “He’s been set up.” Didn’t matter. They were in there, and I wasn’t.
A stone-cold box with small windows that looked out into fields of lush green corn stocks. A small window that afforded a view of a highway, people moving, life being lived as opposed to just existing.
Read MoreClick on these links to read Part One and Part Two of this series. *** by David Anderson Canada once understood what it meant to be fierce, to defend sacred boundaries. The good life and relative peace existing for generations
Read MoreUber’s gleeful lawlessness is proving to be its Achilles heel. This was obvious to anyone with common sense while Toronto was re-writing its vehicle for hire by-law for Uber last year and SHOULD have been immediately apparent to the politicians we pay to make our laws. It was not.
On June 21, in an article entitled “Uber can’t be fixed; it’s time for regulators to shut it down,” Benjamin Edelman wrote in the Harvard Business Review: “The company’s cultural dysfunction, it seems to me, stems from the very nature of the company’s competitive advantage: Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking. And having grown through intentional illegality, Uber can’t easily pivot toward following the rules.”
“Having built a corporate culture that celebrates breaking the law, it is surely no accident that Uber then faced scandal after scandal. How is an Uber manager to know which laws should be followed and which ignored?” Edelman asks.
Read MoreBefore Uber arrived in Toronto, the City had a viable social contract with the individuals willing to invest $60,000 or more in an Accessible van customized to transport passengers with wheelchairs and walkers.
Now, in 2022, the last fleet of Accessible vans purchased before Toronto shredded its social contract with Taxi drivers is aging out, and many of the owners have no plan to re-invest.
Read MoreI was up in the Oregon hills a few years back on the way to California. It was a beautiful day. Sun was shining, the air was clear. I surmised that by the time the sun went down, I’d reach my destination of Sacramento.
Now, I was just coming into quiet, quaint little town about to descend down a not so big hill, when I saw that at the bottom of the hill a not-so-big pickup truck was starting its ascent up the hill.
As we drew closer, I could see this wasn’t an ordinary pickup. No, sir; this was
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Taxi drivers slept out on the cold concrete of Nathan Philips Square to defend the Rule of Law in 2015. Photo: Taxi News
Taxi drivers are owed giant apologies by so many groups, it’s hard to keep track any more.
I have read so many ridiculous, misguided, inaccurate and plain pathetic media articles about Uber in the past 4 years, I am at risk of becoming inured to the lunacy. I’ve lobbied politicians and pleaded with cops. I’ve debated family members and friends. I’ve pestered media members until they ran away from me.
Their minds are impenetrable; people want so desperately to believe you can get something for nothing, you can’t overcome their magical thinking.
We should never give up thinking skeptically, though, and challenging the lunacy; because what happened to taxi drivers could happen to anyone in any industry. The corruption and massive breach of business and political ethics that have infected the vehicle for hire industry can – and will – affect EVERY industry in future. Uber’s business model and philosophy is a cancer that must be removed from commerce.
Cabbies, unfortunately, have been the canaries in the coal mine. I’m so sorry.
Read MoreClearly, the Uber Files offer a platform for politicians to issue sweeping statements about how perfectly fine their behaviour was 10 years ago. But here’s where doubts creep in: their behaviour wasn’t perfectly fine then, and this story didn’t end 10 years ago. It’s happening right now, today. What if the Uber Files are nothing more than a cue for Uber and the politicians that enabled it to claim they are putting the past behind them and lull everyone back to sleep?
In Toronto, for example, Uber’s influence over the law didn’t end when Mayor Tory brought a motion to Council which offered ridesharing companies preferential rules, generously handing them a massive competitive advantage.
Uber’s influence is still as plain as the nose on your face in, for example, the situation occurring right this minute as Toronto’s Licensing division is lackadaisically moseying along in its third year of attempting to roll out a training program for Vehicle for Hire (VFH) drivers.
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