About 100 taxi drivers gathered at the constituency office of outspoken city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti on Wednesday afternoon for what was billed as a ‘display of strength’ against Uber ahead of a city council vote that could determine the fate of the popular ridesharing service’s Toronto operations.
The gathering at Mammoliti’s Islington Avenue office was organized by the Ward 7 councillor to help show Uber “who they are up against” as the company rallies support for the inclusion of a "private vehicle for-hire" option in the city’s regulatory framework ahead of an anticipated Sept. 30 vote by city council.
The provision, which was included in a series of staff recommendations on how to reform ground transportation regulations in Toronto, would effectively legalize services like Uber X, in which part-time drivers approved by the company use their own vehicles to pick up fares.
So far Uber has collected more than 42,000 signatures on a petition urging council to vote in favour of the provision. Mammoliti, meanwhile, has said that he has collected more than 1,000 signatures on a petition of his own calling on council to uphold a vote by the city’s licencing and standards committee scrapping the proposed provision.
“Uber has flexed their muscle, their big corporate California Yankee muscle quite frankly, and has come into Toronto and said we don’t have to play by the same rules (as taxis) and we can’t accept that,” Mammoliti told CP24 on Wednesday. “We need to ensure that any partners that come on board are going to play by the same rules as the taxis have for years.”
Critics of Uber, including Mammoliti , have said that the ridesharing service will ultimately bring about the end of the taxi industry by allowing drivers to reduce costs by using their own vehicles and not purchasing commercial insurance.
Speaking with CP24 at Mammoliti’s rally, one taxi driver said that the city isn’t being fair to his industry by assigning it one set of rules while allowing services like Uber X to follow another.
“The Uber is breaking the bylaw, the bylaw of the taxi industry. The taxi industry has to have commercial insurance, has to have a plate from the city and has to have a professional driver,” the driver said. “Uber X don’t pay the taxes, they don’t have the insurance. Some of the drivers are 18 or 19 year-old kids who don’t even know the city. They are not experience drivers.”
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