Driver registry, improved accessibility proposed
CTA Review, Budget submissions highlight improvements required
The Canadian Taxi Association wrote the Ontario government two substantial letters in January in advance of the ground transportation review framework review scheduled for 2026. Taxi News has posted both communications pieces in full, below.
Ontario needs a system to manage licensing and tracking the thousands of professional drivers providing ground transportation services, industry members have told Doug Ford.
“The time has come for one centralized, comprehensive provincial information management system tracking both commercial drivers and their registered vehicles,” says Marc André Way, president of the Canadian Taxi Association (CTA).
“Too many municipal governments are failing at crucially important elements like delivery of accessible services; management of congestion causing gridlock; and the crime prevention and consumer safety aspects of ground transportation. No town or city in Ontario is equipped to deal with the surveillance pricing or algorithmic driver pay systems which have been introduced by American corporations; these sophisticated new systems require provincial oversight.”
When the Ford government announced it would conduct a review of Ontario’s ground transportation framework as part of the Fall Economic Statement, the CTA worked with a coalition including rideshare drivers; police; environmental and accessibility groups to offer a new vision for improved ground transportation. These ideas were sent to Premier Ford in a letter on January 19th.
Priority areas for discussion include:
- compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities’ Act;
- business being lost to gridlock;
- consumer protection;
- passenger safety;
- drivers’ earnings; and
- emissions.
“With the explosion in the number of vehicles for hire (VFH) since ride hail services arrived in 2014, municipalities have found the task is too much for them to handle, and so many towns are simply walking away from the task,” Way says, pointing to a decision by Oakville Town Council on January 26 not to require ride hail drivers like Uber and Lyft to file their police background checks with Oakville.
On January 30, the CTA submitted a proposal to Ontario’s Budget consultation highlighting the fact that Ontario is subsidizing American corporations at an estimated cost of $3 billion annually.
“All of the costs of gridlock, policing, and provision of accessible services are being downloaded to taxpayers, while corporate investors like Blackrock and Vanguard siphon money out of Ontario,” Way points out. “Our transit systems are losing riders and revenues, which harms us on the longer term.
“It has been a decade since laws were re-written to satisfy these American corporations. We welcome Ontario’s review and the chance to update and re-design a ground transportation system which benefits everyone: accessible users, hard-working drivers, and citizens concerned about safety and protecting our environment.”
