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Council promises changes on the way for ‘unfair’ town taxi bylaw

March 12, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Mike Baker

Orangeville Council has vowed to revamp a bylaw regulating taxi and ride-sharing services in town after hearing on Monday that local firm Call-A-Cab is close to going out of business. 

In a passionate plea to Council, Ricky Singh, General Manager of Call-A-Cab, said the sudden influx of Uber and Lyft drivers to Orangeville, along with a drastic increase in his company’s fleet insurance rate, has brought about the very real possibility that his company could cease to exist, following more than three decades of service to the community. 

The insurance issue, particularly, has been disastrous, Mr. Singh admitted. Back on Feb. 29, Call-A-Cab received notice from its insurer that individual fleet rates would be more than doubling over the next year, causing a panic that culminated in approximately 80 percent of the company’s cars and drivers being pulled off the road.

“In the last week of February, our insurance was set to renew. Last year, our fleet insurance was $4,700 per vehicle. This year, we were quoted more than $12,000 per vehicle. We were just not able to pay that amount,” Mr. Singh said.

He said that following further discussions with their insurer, they were given one possible out – to put through insurance in the driver’s names, rather than using the company. This option would bring the annual rate down to between $6,000 and $7,000, but would require Call-A-Cab to transfer ownership of its vehicles from the company to the drivers.

It was a possibility they considered. Ownership organized a meeting with the drivers for March 1 to further discuss their options, but before that meeting could take place, Orangeville bylaw officers, armed with information that the company’s insurance had expired, cancelled the majority of Call-A-Cab’s taxi licences. 

“Currently, we only have three Orangeville taxis on the road. We usually have more than 15 cabs available. It’s having a huge impact on our town right now. The business growth is negative, maintenance cost is very high for us, it’s not manageable,” Mr. Singh said. “We have some drivers who have been working with this company for more than 25 years, and right now they’re sitting at home. It’s not right.”

This was the second time in six months Mr. Singh had come before Council looking for assistance. Last November, he called on the municipality to establish rules that would regulate ride share companies such as Uber and Lyft looking to operate in Orangeville. 

Those companies, Mr. Singh said, are able to employ drivers in communities all across the globe, often with little to no expense to either drivers or the company.

“In the last two years, this has become a global issue. For a taxi driver to be fully licensed and insured, they must have three years’ driving experience, obtain a criminal record check and have a clean driver’s abstract. For Uber, they can have a guy who has only been in the country for less than two months, who still has to learn how to get to Brampton from Orangeville, driving for them. No questions asked, as long as they have a (driver’s) licence, Uber will approve them,” Mr. Singh said. “This is a huge hit to the taxi business, not only in Orangeville, but all over Canada.”

He added, “Ride share company drivers, right now, have zero expense to operate in Orangeville, whereas an Orangeville taxi and its driver have multiple costs associated with running on a yearly basis to operate in the town. As well, whenever there is something wrong with the taxi (service), something we can’t control, or permit (issues), an immediate action is taken right away. I’m not complaining, but that’s just the reality.”

James Betz has been a dispatcher with Call-A-Cab for the past 10 years. He called on Council to “forget about the taxi bylaw” and allow taxi companies to operate carte blanche in Orangeville.

“I think you should leave the bylaw alone. Let it go for four or five years. Open things up and let’s see what happens,” Mr. Betz said. “I honestly believe (the market) will take care of itself. You allowed Uber in, Lyft in, basically anybody with an app nowadays can come in and drive now. What is the difference of just scrapping the whole bylaw?”

With more than 17 years of experience as a taxi driver in Orangeville, Stephen Reid said he too would like to see the municipality repeal its taxi bylaw. He questioned why he should be required to spend money to obtain various documents required by the town to be a registered cab driver, when those working for Uber and Lyft are not held to the same standards.

“If I have to pay $100 for a criminal record check, and $30 for a (cab) licence, I’d like to know why Uber drivers don’t have to do the same thing,” Mr. Reid said. “If they’re going to be able to operate without restrictions, without regulations, then I don’t feel I should be required to have those certifications.”

Mayor Sandy Brown acknowledged there needs to be a “levelling of the playing field” between taxi and limousine companies and organizations such as Uber and Lyft.

“We recognize our bylaw needs updating, and we’re working on that and going to discuss it further. We know the taxi industry has been hit hard with a number of issues, including insurance and ride-sharing. Clearly, it’s a difficult industry to operate in, and we understand that,” Mayor Brown said. “We’re hoping that collectively, including stakeholders, we want to bring everybody into a discussion so that we can find the right solution going forward. It was a very unfortunate, precipitous ending for your insurance, but there was no other option” for the Town’s bylaw department than to cancel many of Call-A-Cab’s taxi licences.

Following a brief discussion amongst Council, it was decided that the Town would press forward with a plan to regulate taxis, limousines and ride-share companies under a single bylaw. A public meeting will be held in June to obtain feedback from the public regarding what they would like to see included in a new bylaw.

Beyond that, staff will also make immediate interim changes to the existing taxi bylaw that will lift the restrictions on the total number of plates issued within the town, remove the restrictions on taxi fleet colour schemes, remove restrictions on roof lighting, change the prescribed fare rate to a maximum prescribed fare rate, and extends the expiry date of a current license from July 31 to Oct. 31. 

In closing, Mayor Brown reiterated the fact that the town was “open for business” when it comes to issuing taxi licenses, and assured Mr. Singh that, should he be successful in obtaining insurance for his fleet, the licenses that were previously taken away by bylaw staff would be reissued. 

“Market forces have created problems for the taxi industry. I’m sorry those marked forces have happened, but they’re beyond our control, other than we can try and help with revamping this bylaw,” Mayor Brown said. “We are working towards that, and hope in the next three to four months we will have a good documents that will stakeholders will feel comfortable supporting.”

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