CABBIE CONCERN
Brampton’s move to eliminate English proficiency test for cab drivers has one city councillor worried,
“I’m in a real hurry, it’s an emergency. You need to get me to the hospital as fast as you can.”
If you’re a taxi driver and can’t understand this basic English instruction, Brampton Councillor Gael Miles doesn’t think you should be driving. Her council colleagues just voted to get rid of a mandatory English test for cabbies and she fears ride-sharing companies are setting new, lower standards, including ones that don’t require English proficiency.
While Brampton and cities such as Toronto still maintain basic English requirements for taxi drivers, Uber told the Star it isn’t necessary for its drivers to speak English because of language translation software the company provides with its popular apps.
After Brampton council dumped the previously required short written English “benchmark” test to prove basic English skills, Miles, who cast the only vote to keep the test, is concerned that a driver might miss important details, such as what hospital a passenger needs to get to, or that someone needs to find a pharmacy right away.
“The taxi industry is regulated to ensure that our community can call a taxi, with some assurance that safe transportation is available to them, or a member of their family,” Miles told the Star this week, expressing her disappointment with the council decision two weeks ago. She agrees with Brampton residents who have voiced their frustration over the de- cision.
“In an emergency, parents may have to rely on a taxi driver to pick up a child or a senior or someone that is vulnerable,” Miles said. “They could be called to respond to an emergency. What confidence would you have knowing that the driver may not speak English?”
Even though some of her council colleagues agreed with Miles, the vote passed 9-1, as the taxi industry, a sizable lobby with 4,000 drivers operating in Brampton, convinced council to scrap the English test. Other councillors argued requirements already in place, such as the need to pass a driver’s licensing test in English, already ensure taxi drivers are able to communicate well enough in English.
“We want to do the same thing the city of Toronto does,” said Milton Bhangoo, a driver representative on the city of Brampton’s taxicab advisory committee, who manages the local taxi company Kwik Kab. “Good drivers were running to Toronto because they don’t have a test. My company and any good taxi company would never hire a driver who can’t speak good English, who can’t give good customer service.”
Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon voted to scrap the test. “The taxi industry came to us and said they want to make the system like Toronto’s, where English is mandatory, a requirement, but there is no testing for it.”
City of Toronto spokesperson Tammy Robbinson confirmed this, but said the taxi driver business licence “application process is in English.”
Brampton Councillor Martin Medeiros, who supported using the Toronto model, had a heated exchange with Miles during the recent council debate, after Bhangoo had delegated council, telling members the test was unfair, because places such as Toronto have no such requirement.
“In other areas where we give out licences we don’t require an English test.” Medeiros said if you don’t have to write one to open a “cupcake” store or to become a “tow-truck driver,” you shouldn’t have to take a written English test to be a taxi driver.
During the public debate, Medeiros, a Portuguese-Canadian, said that segment of his community is frustrated because there are a lot of “good workers who work in trades” with ties to the community here, “yet they can’t pass the (immigration ministry’s) English test. But if you speak to employers they’re dying to get them here.”
Regarding the city’s English test for taxi drivers he asked, “So, how necessary is it?”
Sukhjot Naroo, co-founder of Brampton Beats, a social network site with more than 4,000 members focused on city hall issues, says some kind of English test is “very important.”
“I’m not saying you have to write a written test, but there needs to be some kind of test to prove compre- hension,” Naroo said. “We have more than 40 ethnic communities in Brampton — English is the link language, it is the language we all share and have to communicate with each other in.”
When Naroo tried to get a taxi licence in Mississauga three years ago he had to pass a verbal test (a Mississauga spokesperson confirmed that the verbal test using taped questions that drivers have to answer is still mandated). He supports a similar approach in Brampton.
“The taxi industry in Brampton is a big lobby, 4,000 drivers, all their family members and their sphere of influence. I hope the councillors didn’t pander to this lobby. It seems reasonable to expect a working knowledge of English from taxi drivers. I think the competition from Uber is also driving this.”
Uber spokesperson Susie Heath said, “We think that all Canadians should be eligible to drive on the Uber platform.” She said translation software the company uses “can provide the same if not a better level of service . . . Reflecting the diversity of our city, hundreds of Torontonians are using the driver-partner application in over 10 languages across the GTA.”
Miles questioned why municipalities are still trying to regulate the traditional taxi industry.
“If the driver can’t understand English then you’re severely disadvantaged. It’s an expectation,” she said during the recent council debate, adding that scrapping the test was where she “draws the line.” On Monday she said, “As council seems determined to move away from regulating the taxi industry, I have asked for staff to prepare a report that gives consideration to what our role should be in the future.”