Court filings show Uber clashing with province, city

Uber Canada is asking the courts to overturn two decisions that affect its ride-hailing business, one requiring it to provide accessible rides and the other imposing fees on drivers to work in the city's core.

Uber Canada filed two separate petitions in B.C. Supreme Court in the past week, naming B.C.'s attorney general, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, passenger Martin Bauer and the City of Vancouver.

The ride-hailing giant was ordered in March to pay $35,000 to Bauer, who uses a wheelchair, after the tribunal found he was discriminated against and to offer those with disabilities accessible rides.

The tribunal found Uber contravened Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which bans discrimination on the basis of physical disability among other factors.

Uber is seeking an order to set aside the tribunal decision and to dismiss Bauer's complaint, arguing B.C.'s Passenger Transportation Act and the Passenger Transportation Regulation conflict with the Human Rights Code.

The company argued before the tribunal it was exempt from providing accessible rides because a provincial law instead allows ride-hailing apps to pay a 90-cent “per trip” fee. That money is intended to offset costs for conventional cab companies to increase their fleets of accessible taxis, it said.

But the attorney general told the tribunal the fee was intended to act as an incentive for ride-hailing apps to provide accessible rides, not as a cost of circumventing the Human Rights Code.

“Uber must still pay the per-trip fee to fund wheelchair accessible services provided by others but now has to provide those same services itself,” Uber's court petition says. “That makes no sense.”

Uber argued the province proposed and set out the per-trip fee as an alternative to providing wheelchair accessible vehicles through its app during consultations before the company opened in B.C.

“Uber was amply justified” in paying the fee instead of providing accessible rides and it “did not breach the code and the decision should be set aside on that basis,” the petition said.

And it listed 10 pieces of “evidence” that showed “the per-trip fee was intended to be in lieu of wheelchair accessible services,” compared with the attorney general's “unsupported and unexplained assertion to the tribunal” that it was meant only to encourage Uber to provide accessible rides.

“No one, including the attorney general, has ever articulated how the per-trip fee might incentivize Uber Canada to provide wheelchair accessible services,” it said. It called the tribunal's conclusion that that was the purpose of the per-trip fee “wrong and illogical.”

In the separate second petition, Uber asked the court to declare Vancouver's “congestion and curbside management permit” invalid because the province has passed a law banning municipalities “from establishing or imposing tolls.”

It also said provincial law grants the B.C. Passenger Transportation Board exclusive jurisdiction to regulate ride-hailing firms, including establishing the number of vehicles in any given municipality, the operating area and rates charged.

Vancouver's bylaw requires any ride-hailing vehicles in certain areas of Vancouver from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to hold a $5,000-a-year permit and pay a 50-cent fee for every trip that starts or ends in those areas, the petition says.

The fee amounts to a “toll on the use of Vancouver's streets,” it says.

The petition also says the province in 2019 removed from the Vancouver Charter the power to regulate the number of ride-hailing vehicles and their charges and drivers in the city.

The city's stated intention of its fee is to “manage congestion and curb use associated with ride-hailing service,” or to reduce the number of vehicles by “imposing an extra toll,” said Uber spokeswoman Keerthana Rang in an email.

And she said Uber separately lists the 50-cent charge on receipts, and “clarity is needed on whether this is actually a valid charge,” she said.

“In both instances, we are seeking clarity on what is permissible under provincial legislation,” she said.

None of the statements made in the petition have been proved in court.