AN INDUSTRY IN FLUX

WHEN SIX VETERAN Montreal bike messengers — Gabe Ng, Eric Lebeau, Mackenzie Kirby, Kelly Pennington, T.J. Stevenson and Colin Soper — founded Chasseurs Courrier, a rider-owned, rider-operated collective, in 2014, it was out of a want to do something more. All had worked for the big downtown messenger companies (there are more than 30 in Montreal, but only about a dozen use bike messengers) and eventually become discouraged. “The Montreal courier industry is kind of built on everyone undercutting each other,” Pennington says. “It’s basically this giant race to the bottom for prices, and with less and less work, you’re working harder and harder for less money. There’s nowhere to go. You’re stuck.” Ng says that most of the bigger and older companies operate on commission, which generally sees the rider get 50 to 60 per cent of the price of the delivery. An average daily wage for an eight-hour shift, he says, is $75 to $80, “if you’re lucky.” Since much of the traditional messenger work — delivery of envelopes and papers from office to office — was already spoken for, Chasseurs looked elsewhere: to food delivery, mainly, as well as to packages and larger items. (The company has two surprisingly versatile cargo bikes in their fleet; Pennington once transported a fullsize couch on one of them.) Chasseurs contracts with local restaurants to provide delivery services for takeout, in lieu of those businesses keeping their own driver on staff. Delivery by bike is often quicker in heavy traffic, and the restaurants can claim to offer carbonneutral takeout, too. The focus on food and physical objects bodes well for the future of Chasseurs, since the rise of email, PDFS and online signature apps has reduced the amount of paper being moved around the city. But the business is still vulnerable. “I just hope for stability,” says Pennington. “I just want to get to a point where we’re all working, and we can kind of set a standard for what a living wage as a messenger is.” “We’re not making millions at Chasseurs,” Ng adds, “but at least it’s a fair, transparent and fun working environment.”