Toronto’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 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.
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Clearly, 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.
Read Moreby Harvey Spiegel. Q.C. Superior Court Of Justice Toronto,Ontario, Retired On Nov. 18 2014, at a press conference announcing the City’s application to restrain all Uber operations in Toronto, Tracey Cook, the executive director of Municipal Licensing and Standards Division
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“Our next regularly scheduled session is on July 19th, and priority seating will be given to participants who have already obtained a DRVRhub certificate, but now cannot use it until Toronto makes a decision on whether those certificates will be honoured. No one knows how long that decision will take; and in the meantime, we know these drivers need to be working.”
According to City staff, 3602 Vehicle for Hire Completion Certificates were issued by DRVRhub in the 3 weeks it was operational; Toronto has not yet determined whether or not those Completion Certificates will be accepted in its VFH training program.
Read More Today, Monday July 11, 2022, the Taxi/Ridesharing world is abuzz with information and comment on “The Uber Files,” published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
I am reading as fast as I can, and have received phone calls from numerous associates who have various interests in the files. Taxi, Ridesharing, Insurance, Finance, Government Relations, Lobbying, Media – everyone who has watched the Taxi/Uber scenario play out for a decade has an opinion on what the Uber Files mean for business and politics.
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Toronto has suspended the completely online DRVRhub training option from its list of approved Vehicle for Hire (VFH) training organizations.
Licensing and Standards has announced it will investigate complaints the program was too easy to pass, with too much potential for cheating.
A statement provided to Taxi News on July 8th reads, “Please note, the City has temporarily suspended the driver training program offered by DRVRHub, after performing an audit and identifying a number of concerns that threaten the integrity of the program. The program is currently being investigated. Please do not register for the DRVRHub driver training program as the City will no longer accept drivers who complete this program, until the training provider has addressed all concerns.”
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Uber’s relationship with its 6000-or so New Zealand drivers is one of servility, intense control and oppressive provisions, the court heard in final submissions in a major case seeking to have drivers declared employees of the global rideshare company.
The company’s claims that it had no control over drivers were “fictional”, Chief Judge Christina Inglis heard last week. The idea that it was merely a facilitator and match-maker for drivers and passengers was “bogus”. Its written terms of engagement with drivers were “difficult and obscure” even for experienced lawyers; indeed, the company’s own witnesses in the case didn’t appear to understand the terms, said lawyer Peter Cranney, appearing for First Union and E tū, the plaintiffs in the case.
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Dutch Farmers, the world’s most productive, are refusing to comply with government rules intended to reduce consumption of nitrogen-based fertilizers. Image: Twitter While confrontations between farmers and police in the Netherlands continue to escalate, several of those involved in the
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