Uber says it’s focused on coming back into Calgary
The world’s most high-profile ride-booking company appears ready to negotiate with city hall just months after it promised to abandon the Calgary market.
Uber declined to comment Tuesday on integrity commissioner Allen Sulatycky’s report into Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s controversial claims about the city’s covert enforcement operation against the company, but revealed it was in talks with city officials to return to Calgary.
“At this time our focus remains on working with the City of Calgary and the mayor’s office to revisit ride-sharing regulations and bring our services back to the city for the benefit of riders and drivers,” Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a spokesman for Uber Canada, said in an email.
On Tuesday, the careers section of Uber’s website showed job descriptions for two Calgary positions.
One is for an operations and logistics manager and a “brand new Uber Expert” to build the company’s “Greenlight Location” in Calgary.
Uber suspended its operations in November amid a temporary injunction, then said in February it wouldn’t be returning after council approved a new bylaw legalizing ride-booking companies here — rules the company maintained were too onerous for it to operate in the city.
The company has a reported valuation of $66 billion and operates in 490 cities around the world.
In April, Uber again made headlines in Calgary after a candid conversation Nenshi had with a Lyft driver in Boston about Uber was live-streamed and captured on a widely circulated video.
During the ride, N ens hi described Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, as a “dick” and suggested the city used sex offenders and violent criminals to test the company’s background screening process.
On Monday, Sulatycky released a 10-page report into Nenshi’s behaviour and concluded the mayor was “enthusiastically indulging in some extravagant hyperbole” when he made the claims, which “caused more than confusion.”
Sulatycky, a former judge, found the mayor did not act with any malevolent intent and he called for Nenshi to make “a more fulsome apology as enthusiastically delivered as the Boston statements.”
Nenshi apologized at Monday’s council meeting, stating he made a mistake and learned an important lesson.