Six-member board drives policy decisions
With ride-hailing on the horizon in B.C., a six-member board has been tasked with crafting new policies that will govern how companies such as Uber and Lyft can operate.
The Passenger Transportation Board, formed in 2004, is an independent tribunal that makes licensing decisions for passenger-directed vehicles such as taxis, limousines and shuttle vans, and intercity buses in B.C.
In the case of ride-hailing companies, the board has a mandate to set policies around operating areas or boundaries, fleet sizes and rates, and decide on whether an application to operate is approved. Its policies will affect both the ride-hailing companies and taxi companies’ ability to compete.
In the absence of hard data about the industry to help with its decision making, the board is consulting with taxi companies, ride-hailing companies and others to come up with new policies.
The board plans to move to more “evidence-based” decision making when the provincial government has finished creating an information database this fall.
The policies that the board sets will be the basis for its decisions on individual applications from ride-hailing companies.
The board will have its policies in place before ride-hailing companies are allowed to apply to operate in B.C., which happens on Sept. 3. Regulations on licensing and insurance will go into effect on Sept. 16.
The Passenger Transportation Board is made up of at least three members who are appointed by the lieutenant-governor in council.
There are currently six parttime board members, including the chair, serving terms of one to three years. They are paid a per diem for the days they work for the board.
These are the decision makers:
■ Catharine Read was appointed for a three-year term as chairwoman on Oct. 1, 2017. Read has a long history in government, having served in assistant deputy minister and deputy minister positions in the B.C. government, chief economist for the Cayman Islands government, and as the Yukon’s public service commissioner and chairwoman/vice-chairwoman of the Yukon Deputy Ministers Council. After leaving government, she ran her own consulting firm. She has also served on a number of boards.
■ The longest-serving member, Victoria’s William Bell joined the board in February 2008. His current one-year term expires on June 30, 2020. Bell held a range of senior positions in the federal and B.C. governments, including assistant deputy minister. As a member of the Passenger Transportation Board, Bell worked on a report on accessible transportation in 2012 and another on taxi standards in 2014. He was also a member of the board that in 2012 stifled Uber’s low-key entry into the Vancouver market by enforcing rules that required the company charge at least $75 per ride, like limousines.
■ Spencer Mikituk joined the board in March 2012, and his current term expires in June 2020. He has 25 years of experience in the aerospace industry, was an associate dean and manager at the B.C. Institute of Technology, and is now president of Mikituk Consulting in Delta. Mikituk was also on the Passenger Transportation Board during Uber’s 2012 foray into the Vancouver market.
■ Roger Leclerc is serving a oneyear term that expires on June 30, 2020, but has been on the board since November 2012. He spent 15 years as owner and operator of a logging and construction business in Terrace, and went on to manage Kitselas First Nation Development Corp., Kitimat Valley Institute Corp., and Terrace and District Community Service Society. He is based in Terrace.
■ Carmela Allevato is a labour and employment lawyer in Vancouver and a part-time instructor at the BCIT School of Business. She has worked as in-house counsel for public-sector unions in the past, served as a Vancouver school board trustee, and is on the board of the B.C. Industrial Relations Association. Her term expires on Nov. 5, 2020.
■ Baljinder Narang joined the board on March 11 and is the newest member. She was previously a school trustee in Burnaby — she unsuccessfully ran for city council in the October municipal election — and an occupational therapist, and is a member or leader of a number of community groups. Her term expires on Nov. 5, 2021.