Ontario provides $3 billion in subsidies to American corporations: CTA
Costs of gridlock, policing, accessible services downloaded to taxpayers
Ontario taxpayers provide an estimated $3 billion in hidden subsidies to U.S. ride hail corporations like Uber and Lyft, a recent Budget submission details.
“All of the costs of gridlock, policing, and provision of accessible services are being downloaded to taxpayers, while profits leak out of Ontario to global investors like Blackrock and Vanguard,” says Marc André Way, president of the Canadian Taxi Association (CTA).
“Our transit systems are losing riders and revenues, which harms us over the longer term. The open-entry approach Ontario has used in the ground transportation sector has provided favoured market status to American rideshare corporations. This is not innovation, but a hidden subsidy.”
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. It details some of the costs the province is bearing:
- GRIDLOCK AND PRODUCTIVITY LOSS: approximately $1–$3B/year in additional gridlock burden and spillover costs;
- VALUE LEAKAGE FROM ONTARIO TO THE U.S: approximately $0.5–$1.7B/year in economic rents and profits extracted out of Ontario, enabled by regulatory asymmetry and non-compliance incentives. Some of these asymmetries include weaker identity verification; training; accountability; and enforcement requirements than those imposed on local Ontario taxi operators, together with predatory pricing, wage theft, downward pressure on labour and consumer protections.
- PUBLIC RISK TRANSFER: multi-billion downstream costs linked to enforcement drift, fraud/unlicensed operations, safety incidents including sexual assaults; and transit erosion. The City of Ottawa alone was found liable in a $213 million judgement in 2024.
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.
“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.”
