Toronto Mayor John Tory met with representatives of Uber and the taxi industry this week in an attempt to soothe over tensions caused by Friday’s Ontario Superior Court decision dismissing the city’s requested injunction against UberX services.
The ruling had prompted taxi drivers to threaten a wide-scale strike during the Pan-American games and “shut down” the city by ceasing operations when they are needed most. Instead, the mayor plans to wait until fall to review the issue, and will consider drafting bylaws that bring UberX into licensing and insurance-related compliance.
But while the meeting created a temporary détente between parties, Ontario insurance brokers are not pleased with the mayor’s resolution.
“He’s giving Uber what they want, and it’s decimating the entire taxi industry,” said Andrew Baile, a commercial insurance broker based in Milton, Ontario. “It’s the unfairness of it, how Mr. Tory would put in new rules for an entrant into a game that’s been running for a decade, with all other players agreeing to operate by the same rules.”
Baile argues that courts have ruled that personal auto policies do not cover drivers who use their vehicles for commercial or business purposes since the early 1990s, and by tacitly granting approval to ride-sharing mobile apps, city leaders are creating a two-tiered insurance structure that blatantly favors the rule-breaking participant.
“How much more unfair can you get it?,” said Baile. “What will be the next thing? Are companies going to start hiring their own police, and these police will be subjected to certain restrictions, conditions and bylaws that regular police aren’t?”
He compares the situation to one in which new food trucks come along and try to evade existing regulations by arguing that, “oh, we’re not a food truck association, we’re a tech company – just like Uber is saying now.”
More than anything else, however, Baile feels dismayed that Tory and other Toronto officials have not put already put an end to the ride-sharing service.
“City leaders keep going about kowtowing to them – that’s the part I just can’t understand,” he said.
