John Tory made a mistake with Uber, says Perks

“We have to fight hard to claw it all back, but we can do it“

Veteran Toronto Councillor Gord Perks unleashed on Uber and John Tory in an epic display of honesty and accuracy seldom experienced by jaded City Hall watchers.

Perks’ closing statement after the Executive Committee meeting addressing a decades’ worth of issues in the Vehicle for Hire industry stood out, even after an afternoon of emotional, dramatic deputations by desperate drivers.

Transcript of Gord Perks’ December 10 remarks

“Taxis are hard. I think the reason taxis are so hard, is because there’s an awful lot of money at stake. There is a lot of money at stake.

If you’re one of the venture capitalists who floated the loans to Uber to come up to Toronto, you’ve been reaping a pretty handsome reward. But that money has come out of the pockets of the people who provide the service, and it’s come in out of the quality of life in the city of Toronto.

Our job is not our job is not to worry about whether Uber or Lyft or back or someone in the industry is making a healthy profit: our job is to look after the public interest, and we have been trying ever since Uber arrived in the city of Toronto, to find a way to do that. After they arrived illegally.

I just want to take us back to a moment when we came close…the mayor of Toronto that day, John Tory, appointed his chief of staff and Deputy Mayor, Denzel Minnan Wong, to negotiate with myself and former Councillor Janet Davis to see how we could do this.

And we came up with an agreement that would have put a cap on the total number of licenses; required regular vehicle inspections and safety; installed tools to make sure that driver or passengers were safe all the time; that came up with efficiency studies to make sure that we didn’t create congestion and drive people off to TTC; that dealt with accessibility and fair pricing.

We shook hands on it, and we were ready to go. But you know, it was John Tory, so at the last moment, he got cold feet, and we lost that deal.

Now here we are, and here we are struggling with exactly the problems we all predicted we would have if we didn’t put on a cap, if we didn’t control the licensing, if we didn’t control for emissions and we didn’t control for accessibility.

Here’s the thing that I think you all need to know: at the moment when we shook hands on that agreement, Mayor Tory’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan Wong assured us that Uber had agreed. That’s right. Uber agreed to us regulating them in the public interest.

So, when they come in here and make their threats about lawsuits; and they and they mobilize their public their campaigns; and they get their drivers telling people in Toronto things that aren’t true, plant your feet.

Plant your feet, hang tough.

We can do this. Now, we’ve done some good work to date, the data that city staff and their consultants have provided us with is the good framework for an understanding. In this moment, we’ve had a discussion with people in the industry and people who drive, and people who are were former owners, and we’ve learned a little bit more.

What Mayor Chow is doing is saying, ‘Take that little bit more, and let’s establish the regulations that we that we need to do our job, which is to protect the public interest.’

 And when we’re doing that, and when you’re having conversations with lobbyists, and you’re getting ready for the next debate, remember, Uber was willing to make concessions on all of this; but you know, like a kid, when you give them candy for breakfast, they’re going to want candy for lunch.

The former mayor made a mistake when he made too many concessions, and we’re going to fight. We have to fight hard to claw it all back, but we can do it.”