Daoust steers Uber back to drawing board
QUEBEC Transport Minister Jacques Daoust said he is open to sitting down with Uber in the next few days to discuss a potential pilot project, provided the ride-sharing company forces its drivers to acquire Class 4C driver’s licences and taxi permits.
Daoust basically rejected the proposal Uber presented this week to create a parallel system for ridesharing companies, where they wouldn’t have to adhere to the existing system of taxi permits, but would pay operating fees to the government. On Friday, he gave the company until the beginning of next week to come up with a new plan.
Requiring Uber drivers to obtain taxi licences and permits is the very essence of Bill 100, Quebec’s attempt to level the playing field among taxi companies and ridesharing services.
Uber has always maintained it is not a traditional taxi service and threatened to leave the province should Bill 100 come into effect. Most Uber drivers work part time and the company says they can’t afford the costly taxi permits.
Daoust argued Friday it is not in Uber’s best interest to leave a market like Quebec and urged the multinational to go back to the drawing board to find innovative solutions that respect the law.
“Being a technology company, to develop what they have developed, they probably have a lot of imagination, so use your imagination, use your technology, adapt,” Daoust said.
Puzzled as to what exactly has changed, Uber said in a news release Friday that it will seek clarifications. “We will request a meeting with Minister Daoust in order to better understand the government’s intentions and their views on how to establish a pilot project for ridesharing,” said Uber Canada spokesperson Jean-Christophe de Le Rue.
During committee hearings Tuesday on Bill 100, Uber Quebec general manager Jean-Nicolas Guillemette proposed to temporarily suspend operations in Quebec in favour of a one-year pilot project creating a parallel system for ride-sharing companies.
His proposal included having Uber pay an annual administration fee of $100,000 for the right to operate in Quebec, plus a $0.35 fee per ride, which would generate an estimated $3 million annually for the province. In addition, he said Uber could charge clients a $0.07 per ride tax for the benefit of Quebec’s automobile insurance board, on top of the QST and GST.
Under Uber’s proposal, traditional taxis would obtain exclusive rights over street hails, taxi stands, reserved lanes and government contracts.
On Friday, Daoust again encouraged Uber to be more like Téo Taxi, a Montreal-based company that rents taxi permits for its fleet and pays employees $15 an hour. At the heart of the matter is Daoust’s concern Uber will make the value of taxi permits plummet, stripping families of their investment.
Benoit Jugand, spokesperson for the Métallos union representing about 4,000 taxi drivers in the province, said he won’t rest easy until Bill 100 is adopted.