Friday, May 16, 2025
Taxi News & Road Warrior News
Logo of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Image: Wikimedia
Opinion/ColumnTrucking

Journalists & Government in lockstep

Guest Contributor

“Then I managed to contact a reporter who worked for the New York Times, who told me what was happening to me was exactly what was happening to him. His stories were being shut down, he was being blocked. As he saw it, we had two options. One of them was quit and be a whistleblower. Or just stay, and fight it out, and keep trying to push those stories through.
…I was just reeling from all this because I thought, you know, we have betrayed our audience on a massive scale. Massive.”

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Photo: Taxi News
NewsOpinion/ColumnRide Hailing newsTaxi industry news

Uber to pick up unaccompanied teens

Rita Smith

At its May 17th “Go-Get Family Style” launch event, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stressed the company’s safety features which include dialling 911 in case of emergency (although, Uber’s Terms explain “In the event that you need to place a 911 emergency call on behalf of your teen, the dispatcher you’re connected with will see your location, not your teen’s.” How would that help?)

As a parent and a consumer, the sheer number of sexual assaults by Uber drivers in Canada and around the globe set alarm bells ringing.

As the publisher of Taxi News, I cringe recalling comments from an Uber driver who laughed that he didn’t drive for the money: “It’s to meet chicks, man, the chicks you meet at closing time!”

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Marianne Klowak testifies at the National Citizens Inquiry, 18 May 2023.
Guest ContributionsNewsTrucking

Canada’s COVID Media Disaster

Guest Contributor

On Thursday, May 18th 2023, an earthquake occurred. On that day three senior journalists described under oath how Canada’s mainstream media broke the rules and failed every ethics test during the COVID era.

Media coverage of the Freedom Convoy was so obviously dishonest because journalists had, by then, gotten used to torquing the news outrageously. After two years of mindlessly parroting every official COVID talking point, they’d ceded their independence so thoroughly they no longer cared about the audience to whom they were meant to be delivering a public service. Taking orders from above, they were playing follow-the-leader.

Last Thursday, at a National Citizens Inquiry hearing, Marianne Klowak talked about resigning from CBC Winnipeg. In disgust and despair. After 34 years on the job. In her words, “I had witnessed in a very short time the collapse of journalism, news gathering, investigative reporting. And the way I saw it is that we were, in fact, pushing propaganda.”

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Ottawa Courthouse Photo: Wikimedia Commons
NewsRoad Safety DiscussionTrucking

Fake Trucking school case delayed again to June 7

Rita Smith

Court proceedings against individuals charged with operating fake truck driving schools have been delayed again, this time to June 7th, 2023.

In Ottawa criminal court on May 24th, Justice Grant was told by counsel for three of the four accused that they were seeking a delay of three weeks because “Counsel is having trouble meeting with the clients to decide which witnesses to call.”
Upon hearing this, Crown Attorney L. Welch remarked, “This file is already pretty old.”

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This slide was part of the March 28, 2023 webinar with the City of Toronto and Cara Clairman, President and CEO of Plug’n Drive. Image: Toronto.ca
NewsRide Hailing newsTaxi industry news

Net Zero report for VFH to Committee July 6th

RWN Staff

Updated May 25th with estimated date of Net Zero VFH staff report ***** The staff report outlining Toronto’s vehicle-for-hire industry transition to net-zero emissions by 2030 is now expected at the July 6th meeting of the Economic and Community Development Committee

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Photo: "Around the Bay" by Mike Murchison
On the Road with Mike MurchisonTrucking

This is God’s country

Mike Murchison

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ve travelled from one end of this country to the other and talked to many people from many walks of life, countries, ethic, and cultural backgrounds.

Rich, poor, middle class and those on the fringe of whatever edge they’re on. And one thing I I’ve learned is this: this is God’s Country.

Jammin’ gears, serving fries, diggin’ ditches. Whether folks are inputting numbers, selling products, or studying in the halls of our institutes of learning.

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Feature/ProfileGuest ContributionsRide Hailing newsTaxi industry news

Uber rescued municipalities from their own failure to understand supply and demand principles; Taxi paid the price

Guest Contributor

The city had opened a Pandora’s Box when it initiated the restricted entry, equity licensing regime. By the time I entered the business, the city was trying to find a way of extricating itself from this system.

The main problem with extrication was that too many industry participants had invested their lives in the system the city had created. Thus, any move to eliminate the equity plate system was met with strong opposition from those who stood to lose everything they had worked for.
The city opted for a stealth approach.

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Protests in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963 Photo: NPR
Guest ContributionsOpinion/Column

1963 Birmingham, 2022 Ottawa

Guest Contributor

ivil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr would have instantly identified with the truckers’ cry for freedom. He himself talked about the “struggle for freedom,” the “freedom movement,” and “the gospel of freedom.”

Screen capture from the Enclyclopedia of Alabama.  Source here.

Screen capture from the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Source here.

Like some Ottawa residents, certain Birmingham residents were hostile to the civil rights movement. They didn’t care about desegregating society. They resented the inconvenience. They wanted the protests to end.

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