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2 January 2017 As ‘terrible, terrible year’ draws to a close, a desperate industry looks for answers LAWYER Tyrone Crawford, b.a., m.ed.,ll.b. Taxi Plate Sales Taxi Plate Purchases Taxi Tribunal Hearings Criminal Charges Traffic Tickets Incorporations House Sales by Mike Beggs 2016 is likely to be remembered as another year from hell for Toronto taxi operators – a sentiment certainly shared by cab drivers across the GTA and beyond. That brutal assessment comes thanks to the wave of lawmakers who have gone out of their way to accommodate the much-maligned but apparently unstoppable Uber X service under its own separate licensing category (Transportation Network Companies) – granting them unlimited entry of vehicles, along with significantly relaxed regulations for driver training and screening, vehicle standards, insurance, etc. Previously inundated with 15,000-plus vehicles operating outside the bylaw, the Toronto taxi industry is now forced to contend with a growing fleet of more than 20,000 Uber X cars, all of which Toronto Municipal Licensing & Standards reports have been properly screened, inspected, and insured. “It has been a terrible year, just terrible,” says Lucky 7 Taxi owner Lawrence Eisenberg. “And it’s not looking good for the new year.” He alleges by allowing Uber X in under its own category, the City has “screwed” the taxi industry, and Uber is “absolutely killing us.” That pain is being felt across the industry: by long-time owners like himself who believe the City has reneged on a longstanding “social contract” wiping out their plate values and retirement income: shift drivers and lessees who have seen their earnings plummet to alltime lows; garages and brokerages who depend on a healthy industry for their livelihoods. Mohammed “Reza” Hosseinioun, a director of the iTaxiworkers Association says he has never seen it so bad. “I don’t know what happens after Christmas. This is unbelievable,” he tells Taxi News. “Now, more than 50 percent of our business is gone. There’s no flag business anymore. Those guys who used to cruise are sitting on taxi stands. “Nowadays, you can’t believe it, some taxi drivers are working 16 hours a day. I used to take a day off, now I’m working seven days a week. There’s no such thing as a family life.” Many veteran industry leaders claim the City has long used their industry as a licensing cash cow, and is now doing the same by licensing an unlimited number of Uber X cars (reportedly generating revenues for the City of upwards of $500,000 a month, or $6 million a year, from the fee paid by Uber on every fare). Long-time owner operator Gerry Manley has been leading the industry battle for fairness at the hands of the City of Toronto. He says the new bylaw is “riddled with illegalities, errors, and indiscretions”; and he is among those to suggest the licensing of Uber X falls in line with the City’s longterm “hidden agenda” to deregulate the licensed cab industry. In protest, Manley is withholding the new $130 Driver’s Fee slapped on taxi owners, along with his 2017 renewal fee. He says the City needs to shelve House Purchases Mortgages Wills and Power of Attorney’s Notaries Promissory Notes TELEPHONE: 416-760-8118 CELL: 416-827-1611 FAX: 416-760-8175 4945 DUNDAS STREET WEST, TORONTO, ON M9A 1B6 between Kipling and Islington the bylaw in its entirely and start over, and after little or no response to his appeals, Manley has reached out to the Minister of Municipal Affairs & Housing, claiming the new bylaw, “has all but destroyed many decades of hard work and sacrifice by our entire membership.” He wants the Ministry to become involved in setting a bylaw, “that deals fairly with all the people involved in the Drive For Hire industry.” So far, that correspondence has gone unanswered by the City and the province. However, in December, Manley had a brief conversation with Councillor Cesar Palacio, chair of the Licensing & Standards Committee, who promised he would respond to Manley’s “lengthy correspondence.” “We will see whether he gets me answers from staff,” he says. “It has been seven months.” Although hasn’t had the opportunity to examine the new bylaw in detail, long-time Toronto owner/operator Al Moore says, “It certainly hasn’t leveled the playing field. It’s not level by any stretch,” he comments. “They’re all following Toronto. (In Mississauga, Mayor Bonnie Crombie), she’s just following suit. They’re doing what Toronto did, and they want to make sure they have it right, so they don’t upset Uber.” Hosseinioun brands the present situation “total nonsense”, with the MLS offering “no answers” to taxi industry inquiries. Now basically self-regulated, he alleges, “Uber is going to the Commission with what is good, and what is bad for them. They are telling (the City) what to do. “Why do we have a two-tier system here?” he asks. “What is the difference between us and them? The Uber drivers are carrying passengers for compensation.” Manley suggests the whole question of the bylaw’s legality boils down to one critical point. “You can’t sub-delegate authority, unless it says so in the City of Toronto Act, and there’s no mention of that in COTA. They’ve sub-delegated their authority to a private company. That is illegal.” Among the major issues industry is kicking up about is the abolition of the long-running MLS driver training course, and MLS Vehicle Inspection Centre on Eastern Avenue – which critics say will significantly compromise the level of customer service and safety. Similarly, in Hamilton, veteran owner/operator Hans Wienhold cites the recent experience of one taxi owner who was subjected to a mandatory City of Hamilton taxi inspection, and told he must replace his vehicle -- even though it had another year of useful life under that city’s six-year bylaw limitation. “The reason?” he asks. “Because the ‘check engine’ light was glowing on the dash, and even after the owner had had the issue resolved by a mechanic, he was still forced to replace the vehicle.” By contrast, he notes that not one Uber car has undergone a similar inspection to date. “You would have thought that, given the City of Hamilton’s disgusting abeyance of Hamilton’s taxicab regulations in order to accommodate the Uber corporation, they would have, at least, eased up on their heavy-handed treatment of the incumbent taxi operators,” he says on his Block Rants blog. “You’d have thought wrong… They relentlessly harass the incumbent operators, while giving Uber a free pass.” Wienhold is among those who maintain that Uber’s much-praised “business model” is not sustainable, and will result in misery and disaster for all drivers – cabbies JACINTO’S CAR WASH LTD. OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK GAS, DIESEL, ICE 20 PUMPS TO SERVE YOU PUT GAS IN YOUR CAR AND RECEIVE DISCOUNT FOR CAR WASH DISCOUNT TO TAXI DRIVERS 2010 Dundas St. W. 531-8134 (between Lansdowne and Roncesvalles) and Uber X drivers alike. (Manley suggests many such drivers may well end up on the welfare rolls). “Uber is not about technology and it is not about a free market revolution, it’s about corporate manipulation of the taxi business via a broken political system,” he alleges. “The Uber corporation will continue to extract its 25 percent commission from the taxi-using public, regardless of whether there is a 10 percent surplus of cab drivers, or a 2,000 per cent surplus of cab drivers,” he adds. Pointing to the recent complaints from Uber drivers in Toronto, Eisenberg agrees stating, “Once they came in, (Uber) increased their prices for everything. Those (Uber X drivers) who do the work for them know they’re going to get screwed. They just do it. Surprise, surprise.” Mississauga plate owner Peter Pellier says it has been proven time and time again, that, “the open entry model cannot work in the ground transportation industry”. He says “the only encouraging news” at the moment, is that some Uber drivers in Canada and the U.S. are complaining about their rate of pay – given the huge number of drivers, and Uber’s 25 percent fee off the top. “(Under) the Uber model, the Uber guys aren’t making money. So this is going to backfire for Uber all over the world,” he suggests. “But does Uber care,” he continues. “They want their share of the autonomous vehicle market when it really solidifies. That’s what they’re really after. There will be self-driving cars available in every neighbourhood for short, medium and long range fares, so they’re building their (client base) through Uber X.” Hosseinioun claims the riding public is slowly realizing what is happening to Toronto’s ground transportation market under the new bylaw, and that, “They’re now sending e-mails, and calling our councillors saying, ‘This is not right.’” Of the service provided by Uber X drivers, he observes, “The first thing they do is GPS. The customer has to sit in the car for five minutes, while the driver finds his way.” But where do Toronto’s taxi operators turn now in their fight to stay afloat? There has been talk of further driver demonstrations, court action, and calls for financial • see page 9
Shutting down City-run vehicle inspections sure to prove a big mistake, warn critics by Mike Beggs Of all the questionable regulatory changes by the City of Toronto in its unswerving determination to license Uber X, the sudden closure of the long-running Vehicle Inspection Centre at 843 Eastern Avenue ranks among the most objectionable of all, according to licensed taxi operators. According to an Important Notice To All Taxicab Owners released by Toronto Municipal Licensing and Standards on December 9, “As of December 31, 2016, you are no longer required to submit your vehicle for inspection by staff at 843 Eastern Avenue, however a mechanical Safety Standards Certificate (SSC) must be submitted to the Licensing Services office at the East York Civic Centre.” The MLS specifies that, “Safety Standards Certificates are only valid when issued by a Motor Vehicle Inspection Station (MVIS) garage It’s a race to the bottom… They may be destroying the taxi industry completely. It’s so pathetic. You build a building brick by brick. Then the Mayor tears everything down. You don’t need driver training. You don’t need DOT’s. operation licensed by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, and cannot be more than 36 days old at the time of submission.” Requirements regarding the mandatory submission of SSC’s will be posted on the MLS web site in the new year at www.toronto.ca/vehicle inspections. Rundown taxis were a sore point for many years, before the City imposed its semi-annual inspections at the Eastern Avenue facility, some two decades back. And now industry leaders fear this will devolve into “a race to the bottom” with Uber X operators, with the return to the requirement of just a Safety Standards Certificate from any licensed garage. “They are turning back the clock,” complains Beck Taxi operations manager Kristine Hubbard. “History is repeating itself. We’ve been there before. There used to be Safety Standards Certificates, and they weren’t good enough. (The MLS) found some that were photocopied, and others that were fake.” “Absolutely (it’s a race to the bottom),” agrees iTaxiworkers Association president Sajid Mughal. “What they’re aiming for is, by lowering the quality of taxi service, to accommodate Private Transportation Companies. Those politicians making all these bylaws over the last 30 or 40 years, they were all crazy?” “They may be destroying the taxi industry completely,” he explains. “It’s so pathetic. You build a building brick by brick. The Mayor tears everything down. You don’t need driver training. You don’t need DOT’s.” Hubbard stresses this news was delivered just three weeks before the facility’s shutdown -- giving the industry, “virtually no time to adjust to the changes”. What’s more it came with cabbies in the midst of their Christmas season rush, and dealing with winter driving conditions. “As far as I know, no one in the taxi industry was consulted about the changes,” she adds. To this suggestion, MLS executive director Tracey Cook responds, “On May 3, 2016, City Council made a series of decisions related to taxicab, limousine, and Private Transportation Company (PTC) regulations. As part of this decision, City Council authorized that an Alternate Vehicle Inspection Program be developed for taxicabs, limousines, and PTC vehicles.” Hubbard maintains taxi operators were, “happy to go through the (DOT) inspections, and nobody in the industry asked for this. “(The inspections) made us all feel better. There was a higher level of confidence in the cars,” she explains. “Having the City do inspections allowed for control and accountability.” She notes the staff who worked at the Eastern Avenue facility, “knew exactly what to look for with taxis.” Lucky 7 Taxi owner Lawrence Eisenberg was left scratching his head about this latest news, coming on the heels of last summer’s implementation of the contentious Vehicle-For-Hire bylaw. “I think it’s crazy,” he says. “First, (vehicle safety) was a big deal, and now nothing. They’re putting everybody at risk, the drivers and the public. I don’t know what they’re doing. “But we’re going to find out fast enough – when, unfortunately, something bad happens.” Eisenberg also, “still can’t believe” the City abolished its driver training course. “For years and years, that was their main thing,” he adds. “It went from three days, to two weeks. Now, nothing. I don’t get it.” Veteran owner/operator Gerry Manley declares the closing of the MLS vehicle inspection centre, “a big, big mistake on a number of fronts.” “Whatever happened to consumer and driver protection, which the City has always stated was the primary goal in their rationale of having vehicles inspected and checked?” he wonders. “With no other plan in place at the present time, how will the City ensure that the vehicles are safe and roadworthy? Everyone knows, for a few dollars you can always find a mechanic willing to give you a vehicle mechanical safety certificate without even checking the taxicab.” On July 1, 2016, the Ministry of Transportation implemented tougher standards for Safety Inspections, which he says have increased the cost substantially, to $150 to $200. Taxi, limo, and PTC owners are required to go through this process twice a year. “It’s a much more in-depth program,” he explains. “It’s more like a commercial vehicle check. They have to go through a two-page report. It’s very, very transparent. “So the question is, are these costs going to be taken off the 3 January 2017 TAXI TAXI EX-POLICE CARS TOYOTA CAMRY, COROLLA & NISSAN ALTIMA FINANCING AVAILABLE SW SALES LTD. 3199 DANFORTH AVENUE (2 BLOCKS EAST OF VICTORIA PARK) CALL SAM AT: (416) 733-3773 OR (416) 566-2210 ATTENTION DRIVERS! PETER'S TAXI LTD. has moved to a new location to serve you better. We are now located at 75 Crockford Blvd. (I block East of Warden, South of Lawrence) We specialize in taxi service. D.O.T. INSPECTIONS H BRAKES TUNE-UPS H OIL CHANGES BECK, DIAMOND AND CO-OP TAXICABS are available on a daily or weekly basis. owners’ annual licensing fees, since the inspections at Eastern Avenue were included in those renewal costs?” he asks. Hubbard makes it clear the public did not pay for the DOT’s at Eastern Avenue. “Under the City’s cost recovery policy, they were paid for by the industry,” she reminds. “So, any suggestion that the public purse will be better off (with the shutdown of the MLS inspection facility) is simply not true.” Manley is equally perturbed that in-car security cameras are also no longer being inspected, and meters are no longer being sealed, under the new rules. He was the driving force, as Toronto became the first city in North America to mandate cameras into all cabs in 2000 – since reducing the crime rate • see page 12 For more information call John or Dawit at (416)-365-2121 Or Drop in at 75 Crockford Blvd.
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