Letters from our Readers

Re: Sarkaria opens Thunder Bay inspection station

If the new Thunder Bay scale is anything like the one it replaced, it’ll never be open.  

The killer point is, that is one of only two scales in the country that you can’t avoid, the other being West Hawk at the Ontario/Manitoba border.  There is an inspection station in Rush Bay, Ontario, that can’t be avoided, but they don’t have a scale, just an inspection station.  I think I’ve seen it open twice in 30 years.   

Don Taylor

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Re: What will happen when all the Taxis are gone? (Toronto Star)

Kudos on an excellent article in which you raise a salient question.  Indeed, what will the travelling public do when all the cabs are gone, and left to the mercy of Uber et al?  As for Pearson, I well recall the days prior to issuance of the GACOR permits when we simply parked in the meters at what was then the only terminal, entered the arrivals level and scooped fares.  (On one particular occasion, unwittingly, I approached a rotund man in a black bowler hat.  Politely, he refused. Turned out, he was none other than Lord Thomson of the Fleet.)  

To superimpose some semblance of order, the spitter system was introduced.  A taxi ‘stand’ was created in the parking lot adjacent to the Administration Building, equipped with a light.  When the light flashed, the lead cab fed 50 cents into a coin receptacle, then proceeded to pick up the fare.  While cabs from any municipality could work the spitter, mainly they were Mississauga and Toronto cabbies.  Given each municipality had its own tariff, Transport Canada had little choice but to introduce the GACOR permits, along with set flat rates.  My recollection is 300 cabs, selected via an application process administered by the then Ontario Highway Transport Board, received permits, along with a number of limousines, in 1978.  The days of the wild west at Pearson were over.

As for your question, alas, the day is rapidly approaching when the cab industry will be a thing of the past, thanks to the shortsightedness of our regulators, and the utter failure of Queen’s Park to protect the interests of the province’s taxi industry.  I am grateful for having worked as a cabbie in Mississauga from 1969-2003, when times were good, and when we had the full support of the City, especially via the Public Vehicle Advisory Committee.  With the ascension of both Bonnie Crombie and John Tory, everything changed, as both of them openly embraced Uber, much to our detriment.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Peter Pellier