On-demand Taxi: business, or community service?

“With this by-law, Licensing may have literally bypassed the laws”

Re: July 11th, 2024 “Is Accessible Taxi a business or a community service?”

To the Editor, Taxi News:

Once again, you captured the essence of the issue very well with that quote. Is it a business or a community service? Currently, it’s neither.

However, you also brought up the Accessibility Reserve Fund and I remember going through that proposal very carefully (in the 2 days or so we had before it was presented to Council). One of the things that jumped out at me was that the entire program was completely at the discretion of the Director of Licensing.

This included raising funds, dispersing funds, allocating funds, raising the tax/fare/tariff (or whatever you want to call it) at will and all of this with NO OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER BY ANYBODY.

I am fairly certain that was adopted “as is” and that part remained in place. My understanding was that at the very least, General Government and Licensing Committee had financial oversight, as that is absolutely required for any department. Yet with this by-law, Licensing may have literally bypassed the laws.

If you have a copy of the now-adopted by-law, I bet you it’s still in there. 

(This is of course on top of all the other excellent points you already made).

Signed,

David Reti