Now that we’re focusing on taxis, let’s aim for fairness and safety

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson was right earlier this week when he pointed out, as we have several times in these pages, that Ottawa’s taxi drivers are harming their own cause with stunts like undercover ride-sharing stings and the ongoing, on-road protest that has snarled traffic around the city’s airport. It’s unfortunate for them, too, because the cabbies do have a point — a significant hike in airport pickup fees at a time when Uber is already taking a huge bite out of their business does come off a bit ruthless.

While targeting regular citizens, many of whom are probably already stressed or tired from the joys of air travel, isn’t all that intelligent from a public relations standpoint, we should all thank the airport cabbies for finally shaking our city government out of its stupor on the Uber vs. taxi cartel file.

Thus far, the city’s “solution” to Uber’s arrival in the capital has been to play whack-a-mole with Uber drivers, whose fines are covered by the company anyway. Last month, the city sought to further placate cabbies — whose reps warned at the time that drivers were going to “go out on the street and it’s going to be out of control” — by directing the Ottawa Police Service to put more highly-paid officers on the Uber ticket-writing beat and pump up bylaw officers’ efforts.

Now, thanks to the airport protests and the added attention on the taxi system, there’s finally some urgency. Watson, who suggested Wednesday that cabbies “stop shooting yourselves in the foot,” announced that he has instructed city staffers to complete their report into the future of Ottawa’s taxi industry by the end of the year, three months earlier than it was originally due. It’s disappointing that it took images of scuffles in front of our international airport and snakes of cars filled with furious commuters to move the timeline up, but we’ll take what we can get at this point. As if it wasn’t clear enough already: This situation cannot be left to fester any more. The city needs to focus on fairness, safety and adequate infrastructure, not trying to protect old business models.

On Wednesday, the president of the union representing airport cabbies tried to de-escalate things a bit by saying he was sorry.

“I understand the mayor’s concern,” Abed Madi, president of Unifor 1688, said. “For the inconvenience that has been caused to the public, we apologize. Nobody’s dealing with the issue we have ...”

Apology accepted. The protest actually is very annoying and you’re only hurting yourselves.

Thanks, though, for prompting the mayor to hurry up and start dealing with the many issues consumers have with taxi services in this town.