RIP, 2024 report and any cap on VFH numbers
“A report back has not been scheduled”
Olivia Chow left Toronto Blue Jays fans stranded with no Subway service after the World Series
— The Pleb 🌍 Reporter (@truckdriverpleb) November 2, 2025
The people of Toronto are absolutely furious at herpic.twitter.com/7MTCKuEg5h
In Olivia Chow’s Toronto, transit professionals can’t even predict there will be lots of extra riders on the subway after the 7th game of the World Series; how could they guess 85,000 VFH would add to congestion? Video: @realitydocu
I think we can assume the report on capping the number of Vehicles for Hire (VFH) will not make it back to Toronto Council before the 2026 election.
Taxi News wrote Toronto’s media office in October to ask when the report was expected to be re-considered.
“Work remains ongoing but a report back has not been scheduled,” came the prompt but vague reply from the Media Team. In my minds’ eye, I can see this all-purpose Key Message written in letters six inches high on a whiteboard somewhere:
“Work remains ongoing but a report back has not been scheduled.”
When Taxi Owners and Operators organizer Behrouz Khamseh contacted me last week to fill me in on his recent meeting with Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik and members of the Licensing Standards and Traffic divisions, I was not surprised to find this Key Message was the standard answer to every question about the 2024 report:
“Work remains ongoing but a report back has not been scheduled.”
Khamseh caused a little ripple of excitement last March when he came forward to say that he’d had a sidebar chat with City Manager Paul Johnson at the March 19th Executive Council meeting. In that conversation, Khamseh said, Johnson stated that he was the author of the staff report to Committee that came forward on December 10, 2024; that the report was intended to fill the requirement of presenting a report but that no cap on Vehicles for Hire was actually being considered; that the report was dead, would never come back to Committee or Council, and that there would be no cap on the numbers of Vehicles for Hire in Toronto.
Toronto responded to Khamseh’s charge with the following words:
“While the City Manager enjoys interacting with stakeholders and members of the public, the City of Toronto confirms that the statements attributed to City Manager Paul Johnson in this context are not true.”
My Inner Political Staffer immediately took note of the fact that Toronto did go so far as to say that Johnson never said those words; Toronto claimed “the statements…are not true.”
Personally, I believe Behrouz. I was there many years ago when he and a few other owner/operators held a hunger strike in Nathan Phillips Square, sleeping for several bitter nights on the cold concrete outside the doors to City Hall in protest of John Tory’s complete abrogation of the Rule of Law. Behrouz Khamseh is an honourable man who cares more about truth and fairness than any bureaucrat I’ve ever met, and I would not have published his words if I did not believe he was telling the truth.
Back to the report: a retired City Councillor described to me recently: “Olivia Chow is in so far over her head she is drowning. She cannot even grasp most of the policy files she has to deal with; she is at the mercy of her staff, who tell her what to think. Her staff are telling her not to get into capping the number of Vehicles for Hire, and so she never will.”
“Work remains ongoing but a report back has not been scheduled.”
The World Series is now (sadly) behind us, and the clock is ticking on the election which will take place on October 26th. The chance that Olivia Chow will want to engage in the debate about whether or how 85,000 Vehicles for Hire might be adding to the gridlock and emissions in downtown Toronto is exactly zero.
Of course, I would love to be proven wrong about any of this. But judging by results to date, on October 25th 2026 the Key Message will still be,
“Work remains ongoing but a report back has not been scheduled.”
