UBER REFUSES TO BACK DOWN
Tells hearing it won’t suspend service
Uber executives got a rocky ride at the National Assembly Thursday, beginning with the transport minister accusing them of making a mockery of Quebec’s laws, and taxi drivers forming a hostile receiving line, calling for them to be booted out of the province.
“Kick them in the butt right out of Quebec,” said Benoît Jugand, spokesperson for the Métallos union representing most taxi drivers in the province, as soon as Uber was done presenting.
Hearings into the future of Quebec’s taxi industry got off to a good start Thursday morning but took a dramatic turn when Uber Quebec general manager Jean-Nicolas Guillemette sat down to list some of the company’s accomplishments: 8,000 drivers have offered 450,000 rides to people in the Montreal and Quebec City area in recent months, he said.
“I don’t understand why you’re so happy about having broken the law 450,000 times,” Transport Minister Jacques Daoust shot back. “People call you, but it doesn’t mean you’re legal.
“You’re in the house where we make laws and what you’re saying is: ‘Until I like the laws I won’t respect them,’ and for me, sir, that’s unacceptable. We will be the ones to impose a model on you.”
The minister wasn’t nearly finished.
“How can you pretend to want to be the government’s partner when you don’t respect the law? We have seized your vehicles 1,000 times; you pay the drivers’ fines and pay for replacement vehicles ... You’re not looking for a solution, you’re looking for confrontation and you may very well get it,” Daoust warned.
The minister formally requested that Uber suspend its operations during the hearings, and open its books to Revenue Quebec to allow the Quebec government to recoup taxes the company hasn’t paid.
Uber, which began operating in Quebec in the fall of 2014, is a worldwide ride-sharing service that connects riders and drivers via apps. Guillemette said it takes on average four minutes to get an Uber car in Montreal, and the service is half the price of a regular taxi ride. The company operates without taxi permits, and isn’t burdened with the same insurance and inspection costs as taxi drivers.
It is illegal under the Criminal Code to provide passenger transportation for remuneration without holding a taxi owner’s permit.
“Of course you’re less expensive,” Daoust said, “you don’t have any constraints.”
Uber was further raked over the coals by Parti Québécois MNA Martine Ouellet and Québec solidaire co-leader Amir Khadir, who called the San Francisco-based company’s practices “brutal capitalism.”
“Isn’t it true that your company has been fined 150,000 euros for deceptive and misleading advertising?” Ouellet asked. “I don’t have any details,” Guillemette responded.
“Give us the list of countries where you are not welcomed,” she insisted. “I don’t have that information,” he said.
Later pressed by reporters, Guillemette said he would not stop operations in Quebec, but invited the minister to come look at his books.
“We’re respecting Quebec’s fiscal laws,” he said, adding each driver is responsible for declaring earnings and paying taxes. “We won’t stop our services. Our responsibility is to continue serving the population of Quebec.”
Earlier in the day, the Métallos testified that having a professional association for taxi drivers would help the taxi industry modernize. And Montreal city councillor Guillaume Lavoie suggested the province even out the playing field by regulating Uber, and awarding taxi drivers competitive advantages such as reserved lanes during peak traffic hours and exclusive rights to geographically-advantageous taxi stands.
While MNAs reflect on ways to regulate Uber, Ouellet says the National Assembly should pass her private member’s bill cracking down on “illegal taxi services in Quebec by increasing the various sanctions imposed on individuals who illegally provide passenger transportation for remuneration.”
The bill, which Ouellet calls a band-aid solution, would allow police to take four demerit points away from any driver who fails to present a valid taxi owner’s permit, and seize a repeat offender’s driver’s licence for up to three months.
“It would help maintain social peace in the province,” Jugand said of the bill.
About 100 cabbies protested in front of the National Assembly on Thursday, while Khadir drove to Sûreté du Québec headquarters to formally request that criminal charges be laid against Uber.
Hearings continue on Feb. 23.