Quebec won’t back down despite Uber’s threats to flee province: minister
Ride-sharing giant refuses to require drivers undergo 35 hours of training
MONTREAL The Quebec government says it isn’t budging after an ultimatum was delivered Tuesday by the ride-sharing application Uber.
The San Francisco-based firm said it will leave Quebec by Oct. 14 if the government doesn’t back down from a demand that its drivers undergo 35 hours of training, the same requirement for taxi drivers.
“The goal here for us is to sit down with the government and find ways to concretely operate, but we know for sure if they impose 35 hours of training, we’ll need to leave,” Uber’s Quebec general manager Jean-Nicolas Guillemette said, insisting its rating method and Uber’s own guidance to drivers are sufficient to provide exceptional service.
Other terms of the pilot project, with which Guillemette did not take issue, are for police to conduct criminal background checks of drivers and for annual mechanical inspections of cars.
Uber has about 50 full-time staff, and its partner drivers make up the equivalent of 3,000 full-time employees, according to Guillemette. Most drivers are part-time workers, so forcing them to undergo a full week of training is excessive.
“The beauty of the Uber platform is the flexibility the driver partner has to come and go and decide when they want to work,” Guillemette said.
Uber has been making waves since it became a part of Montreal’s transportation landscape in 2014. The taxi industry complained Uber was engaging in unfair competition, since its drivers didn’t hold expensive permits required of taxi drivers, some of which are sold on the resale market for nearly $200,000.
Transport Minister Laurent Lessard said the government has been more than patient with the California firm, which he suggested has mastered the art of stalling almost from the moment it arrived.
He pointed out there are other firms using the same kind of technology in the field, with properly trained drivers using electric cars such as Téo taxi, ready to step up and provide consumers the same service. “We are not in a negotiation process,” Lessard told reporters in Quebec City. “We tabled a project and we indicated the elements. So only they can decide what will happen on the 14th. I am open to hearing how they propose to attain the objective, but we are firm on the targets.”
He said he can’t believe a giant company that developed groundbreaking technology can’t come up with a way to give their drivers an online 35-hour training course.
The union representing taxi drivers said it is not surprised Uber doesn’t want to adhere to the terms of the pilot project, saying the company has flaunted the rules since day one.
“What Uber wants is not to have to adhere to any rules,” said Wilson Jean-Paul, the spokesperson for the Regroupement des travailleurs autonomes Métallos. “But I’m a bit surprised, because it’s just 15 hours more of training.”
Jean-Paul was referring to Lessard’s estimate that Uber drivers already undergo roughly 20 hours of training to drive in Quebec.
Jean-Paul said he and his members will “be overjoyed” at Uber’s departure, but he’s not yet ready to sound Uber’s death knell. “We think this is just a threat by Uber, but so far the minister seems to be firm; we’ll see if he stays firm until Oct. 14 ... We won’t let this go.”
RTAM-Metallos has brought several lawsuits against Uber, including a class-action suit that also names the province, blaming it for a decline in the value of taxi permits, which are required to drive a taxi in the province.
Meanwhile, the Board of Trade of Greater Montreal urged Uber and the government to find some common ground that would keep the service in Montreal.
“If this decision (by Uber) is carried out, it has to be seen as setback,” board president Michel Leblanc said in a statement. “While Montreal is positioning itself to welcome innovative businesses, the incapacity to modernize the (existing) regulatory framework to allow Uber to operate in Quebec sends a very bad signal to startups here and to the investors who provide risk capital.”
Incumbent Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, on the municipal election campaign trail in Lachine, said what is important is a level playing field. “We have always said from the start, there is place for Uber, there is place for taxis, but what we have to ensure is that there is equity in terms of regulations,” Coderre said. “That doesn’t mean to have too many rules — it means we have to have a canvas that permits this equity.”
Coderre said Quebec’s stance isn’t a question of being against the sharing economy and noted Uber’s recent problems in London. He suggested Uber has “an attitude problem” and accused the company of having been “condescending ” in the past. He noted the city has reached agreements with similar companies like Airbnb.
“You have to put things in perspective. When someone says ‘it isn’t working and we’re leaving,’ you say ‘listen, we won’t hold you back.’ But what is the problem with having minimal measures (for training)? At the same time, what’s the problem with making sure you have a screening process (through checking for) criminal records?”