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By the time the guy from Uber Canada was done making his pitch to city councillors for deregulating Ottawa’s taxi industry, the taxi people were wondering whether they needed to say anything at all.
Uber’s policy manager Chris Schafer had walked into the meeting of the committee considering legalizing his company’s operations here looking like a winner. A week ago, City Hall released a proposed set of rule changes that would eliminate the taxi business’s legal stranglehold on driving people for money, allowing companies like Uber to compete with cabbies on pretty favourable terms.
The committee’s chair, Coun. Diane Deans, is onside. Mayor Jim Watson is onside. Cabbies understandably hate it, and dozens of them signed up to say so during several days of hearings. But Schafer, because Uber’s Ottawa’s lobbyists are quick, got to go first.
He sat down at his spot in the council chamber, faced the councillors, and began blasting away at his own feet.
How long has Uber been operating in Ottawa? Coun. Riley Brockington asked him, as a warm-up.
It’s a five-year-old company founded in San Francisco, Schafer replied.
Has Uber paid the fines of drivers convicted of violating Ottawa’s existing taxi bylaw as it stands? Coun. Jean Cloutier wanted to know.
“We stand behind our driver-partners,” Schafer replied.
So that’s a yes?
“I think I’ve answered that question.”
(It’s a yes. Just say yes.)
If we pass changes to the rules, will Uber obey the current bylaw until the changes kick in around the end of June? Multiple councillors asked versions of that one. It’s a hypothetical, Schafer said, and on Thursday he wanted to deal with the concrete.
“The current bylaw is not a hypothetical situation,” Cloutier scolded him.
Schafer is a lawyer, with a background at some of the more get-up-your-nose think tanks like the Fraser Institute. Yet somehow he showed up unprepared for basic questions, such as how many drivers are on Uber’s roster in Ottawa and how many complaints the company has dealt with about them. He deals with dozens of municipalities across Canada, he said, and doesn’t have all the data in his head.
Fair enough, as a general rule. But on this day, he was giving a command performance in Ottawa. He might have studied up.
“When you ask a basic question, you want some kind of an answer,” an exasperated Coun. Keith Egli groused during a short break. Others said that while city council’s final decision will probably — probably — end up in Uber’s favour, Schafer made it an awful lot harder for them in just a couple of hours.
Mind you, many of the councillors questioning him behaved appallingly.
Gloucester-South Nepean’s Michael Qaqish bridled at Schafer’s use of the term “ride-sharing” to describe Uber’s business, which is indeed problematic when we’re talking about a pretty straightforward commercial service. But Qaqish snapped at Schafer that he should stop using the word and then said it wasn’t time to debate things so no, Schafer didn’t get to respond.
Beacon Hill-Cyrville’s Tim Tierney went on a strange jag about making sure Uber drivers in Ottawa live in Ottawa and pay Ottawa taxes, a standard that applies to no taxi driver or city employee. We’ve paid for city employees to take city vehicles to their homes in the Gatineau Hill for years. Ottawa’s city manager lived in Carleton Place.
The cake-taker, though, was Cumberland’s Stephen Blais. He asked the reasonable questions about Uber’s numbers in Ottawa that Schafer couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. But he also demanded Uber give the city the algorithm that decides when to raise prices to try to draw in more cars to meet demand and purported dismay that he couldn’t be assured that the pricing algorithm is actually fair.
(Because, of course, when a city-licensed hotdog vendor hikes the price of a sausage by a quarter, he has to file papers with the city explaining it.)
What about in an emergency, like if terrorists take over a café and people are trying to flee for their lives? Blais asked.
“Our model facilitates that,” Schafer replied, explaining that when drivers can make more money they’re more inclined to work. Regulations vary, but in some places Uber donates the surplus it makes in emergencies to a relevant charity like the Red Cross.
“Yeah, you’re real saints,” Blais snorted. You’re saying your drivers are there to help in an emergency, as long as they can make a buck.
(Because, of course, the city’s police and paramedics and firefighters are volunteers, and definitely don’t make overtime in emergencies.)
Uber’s a nasty company that breaks the law to get its way. It’s represented by an eel. The taxi industry it’s disrupting is a relic. The fight between them will be resolved by councillors who either don’t understand economics or pretend not to because they think that looks better on them.
This can only end well.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
Uber’s policy manager Chris Schafer had walked into the meeting of the committee considering legalizing his company’s operations here looking like a winner. A week ago, City Hall released a proposed set of rule changes that would eliminate the taxi business’s legal stranglehold on driving people for money, allowing companies like Uber to compete with cabbies on pretty favourable terms.
The committee’s chair, Coun. Diane Deans, is onside. Mayor Jim Watson is onside. Cabbies understandably hate it, and dozens of them signed up to say so during several days of hearings. But Schafer, because Uber’s Ottawa’s lobbyists are quick, got to go first.
He sat down at his spot in the council chamber, faced the councillors, and began blasting away at his own feet.
How long has Uber been operating in Ottawa? Coun. Riley Brockington asked him, as a warm-up.
It’s a five-year-old company founded in San Francisco, Schafer replied.
Has Uber paid the fines of drivers convicted of violating Ottawa’s existing taxi bylaw as it stands? Coun. Jean Cloutier wanted to know.
“We stand behind our driver-partners,” Schafer replied.
So that’s a yes?
“I think I’ve answered that question.”
(It’s a yes. Just say yes.)
If we pass changes to the rules, will Uber obey the current bylaw until the changes kick in around the end of June? Multiple councillors asked versions of that one. It’s a hypothetical, Schafer said, and on Thursday he wanted to deal with the concrete.
“The current bylaw is not a hypothetical situation,” Cloutier scolded him.
Schafer is a lawyer, with a background at some of the more get-up-your-nose think tanks like the Fraser Institute. Yet somehow he showed up unprepared for basic questions, such as how many drivers are on Uber’s roster in Ottawa and how many complaints the company has dealt with about them. He deals with dozens of municipalities across Canada, he said, and doesn’t have all the data in his head.
Fair enough, as a general rule. But on this day, he was giving a command performance in Ottawa. He might have studied up.
“When you ask a basic question, you want some kind of an answer,” an exasperated Coun. Keith Egli groused during a short break. Others said that while city council’s final decision will probably — probably — end up in Uber’s favour, Schafer made it an awful lot harder for them in just a couple of hours.
Mind you, many of the councillors questioning him behaved appallingly.
Gloucester-South Nepean’s Michael Qaqish bridled at Schafer’s use of the term “ride-sharing” to describe Uber’s business, which is indeed problematic when we’re talking about a pretty straightforward commercial service. But Qaqish snapped at Schafer that he should stop using the word and then said it wasn’t time to debate things so no, Schafer didn’t get to respond.
Beacon Hill-Cyrville’s Tim Tierney went on a strange jag about making sure Uber drivers in Ottawa live in Ottawa and pay Ottawa taxes, a standard that applies to no taxi driver or city employee. We’ve paid for city employees to take city vehicles to their homes in the Gatineau Hill for years. Ottawa’s city manager lived in Carleton Place.
The cake-taker, though, was Cumberland’s Stephen Blais. He asked the reasonable questions about Uber’s numbers in Ottawa that Schafer couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. But he also demanded Uber give the city the algorithm that decides when to raise prices to try to draw in more cars to meet demand and purported dismay that he couldn’t be assured that the pricing algorithm is actually fair.
(Because, of course, when a city-licensed hotdog vendor hikes the price of a sausage by a quarter, he has to file papers with the city explaining it.)
What about in an emergency, like if terrorists take over a café and people are trying to flee for their lives? Blais asked.
“Our model facilitates that,” Schafer replied, explaining that when drivers can make more money they’re more inclined to work. Regulations vary, but in some places Uber donates the surplus it makes in emergencies to a relevant charity like the Red Cross.
“Yeah, you’re real saints,” Blais snorted. You’re saying your drivers are there to help in an emergency, as long as they can make a buck.
(Because, of course, the city’s police and paramedics and firefighters are volunteers, and definitely don’t make overtime in emergencies.)
Uber’s a nasty company that breaks the law to get its way. It’s represented by an eel. The taxi industry it’s disrupting is a relic. The fight between them will be resolved by councillors who either don’t understand economics or pretend not to because they think that looks better on them.
This can only end well.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
