Councillors tight-lipped on city’s Uber operation
Calgary city hall scrambled this week to quell the uproar triggered after Mayor Naheed Nenshi suggested bureaucrats used sex offenders and violent criminals during an enforcement operation to evaluate Uber’s background screening process.
Nenshi says he misspoke when he made the remark during a rideshare trip in Boston last week that was caught on camera.
While the city knows “anecdotally” that one person with a criminal conviction slipped through Uber’s background check, Nenshi apologized for implying “there was a lot more to it than that.”
Council discussed the issued behind closed doors on Monday but largely remain tight-lipped, instead directing the city’s new integrity commissioner to examine the appropriateness of the mayor’s comments and deflecting any questions about the operation to the city.
For its part, the city issued a brief statement maintaining administration is primarily concerned with public safety and that staff “used customary and appropriate investigative techniques to assess public safety, develop an understanding of the (transportation network company) industry, and determine whether offences were being committed.”
In a bid to eliminate any further confusion or, as Nenshi says, conflate the facts, Postmedia on Tuesday asked all council members and the city to provide an unequivocal response to a direct question: “Did the City of Calgary, or a third party acting on the city’s behalf, use sex offenders or violent criminals — or their names — to test Uber’s background screening process?”
Nenshi and councillors Ward Sutherland, Brian Pincott and Peter Demong did not respond. Several declined to comment, citing confidentiality, and directed Postmedia to the mayor’s office or city administration.
“We have used customary and appropriate investigative techniques to ensure public safety,” Stuart Dalgleish, the city’s general manager of planning and development, said Tuesday.
“They are confidential and we don’t disclose details about investigations.”
Dalgleish was general manager of community services when the city ran its enforcement operation last year and was the only city official to respond to Postmedia’s question.
Coun. Sean Chu, a former officer with the Calgary Police Service, said law enforcement agencies would never use registered sex offenders or violent criminals to do their bidding and doesn’t believe the city did in its operation.
“I actually think the mayor should be making any statement because he’s the one making the allegation and he should clear it up,” Chu said, adding elected officials should not be privy to the details of the city’s investigative techniques.
But Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who refused to go in-camera with her colleagues Monday, said she’s convinced city staff acted appropriately but believes Nenshi must retract his statements “immediately and apologize.”