Taxi services deserve even playing field in this city

Toronto is on the brink of becoming a metropolis for an unregulated black market taxi service called UberX.

To protect the safety and well-being of drivers, passengers and pedestrians, it’s important that there be just one set of rules for operating a taxi service in the city of Toronto.

While Uber likes to call its service ridesharing, anyone being honest would acknowledge UberX is being offered by drivers and used by passengers as they would a taxi service. And yet they are not regulated as such.

Next month, civic leaders will present their analysis of how to handle Uber. The job of our elected officials must be to define in regulation the base set of rules that every taxi service, including Uber, must respect.

It’s a point of basic common sense and good governance. As new innovations or trends develop, public officials often need to update regulations.

We don’t have one set of health rules for one group of restaurants and a second set for some others. We define the standard of what’s required and ask all to meet that standard.

We regulate businesses as a society when we believe it is in the public interest to do so.

Whether our goal is to ensure restaurants are abiding by the health code, or that electricians have the proper licences when wiring our homes, or that mechan- ics are properly trained to fix our car, there are many areas we’ve decided that the public interest demands regulatory oversight.

It’s fine for companies to go beyond what’s required, but we don’t accept a company like Uber doing less.

Ensuring adequate insurance is just one example.

We recently learned of an unfortunate situation in which an UberX driver reportedly got into a car accident while carrying a passenger this summer.

Reports say the driver’s insurance company won’t cover him because he was providing a commercial service at the time and all his claims against his personal insurance were denied.

We simply can’t allow people to offer an essential taxi service in this city without ensuring appropriate insurance coverage is in place. And today we now have some100 UberX drivers in Toronto facing charges for illegally hiring out their personal cars.

Businesses recognize that a reality of their existence is the need to compete. The fairness businesses seek from government in this regard is simply the provision of an even playing field.

What would be a mistake is to create one set of taxi regulations for Uber and one set of taxi regulations for the established providers.

An even playing field is what any business in any other sector would expect, and it is all the established taxi providers are looking for in Toronto.

We implore civic leaders to act sensibly and fairly.

Whether our goal is to ensure restaurants are abiding by the health code, or that electricians have the proper licences, there are many areas we’ve decided that the public interest demands regulatory oversight