Possibly thousands of Vehicles for Hire were just given a one year extension on their allowable life by Toronto Council. Photo: Nabeel Syed, Unsplash A motion to allow Accessible Taxis to stay on the road three additional years has morphed
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 MoreTaxi News publisher Rita Smith’s Op Ed on the looming disaster in Toronto’s Accessible Taxi service has been published in the Toronto Star today, July 21st. On July 15, the Star ran a modified version of Taxi News’ editorial “Don’t
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 MoreICC CEO Daniel Bernhard Photo: LinkedIn Following the release of “The Uber Files,” one Canadian group has announced it will not allow its staff to use Uber any longer. The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) issued a statement on July
Read More“We understand that some clients, and especially clients who require Accessible services, have recently endured stressful experiences including service delays. These unfortunate incidents should not occur, ever, and we are very sorry when they do. Please be assured, these regrettable incidents are the opposite of every single thing we strive for everyday in our businesses.
We truly appreciate it when events like these are brought to our attention so that we can work to improve our systems.
Please recall that in 2015, 2016, and 2017, politicians chose to support businesses that make a mockery of the law and of customer service. Rideshare companies were rewarded for their law-breaking by being allowed to skim enormous amounts of the easiest money from the transportation market while providing ZERO accessible services.
Read MoreToronto’s Ward 16 Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong says the 2015 vote to allow Uber in Toronto was part of the Mayor’s Agenda, and that he now regrets voting to support it.
“We crushed the Taxi industry, and we crushed their families,” Minnan-Wong admitted in a radio interview with the CBC’s Jill Dempsey on July 14th.
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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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