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FreePublications Mail Registration No.

40050017

Dear Denzil,take a hike… page 7

Catastrophe inthe making… page 3

Dear Tracey Cook

Just think, only a few short years ago you knew absolutely nothing about the taxi business and now you’re practically an

expert who’s about to propose sweeping radical changes that will effect everyone

in the industry. Here’s a few last thoughts in case there’s still time to tweak your final

report. Barring that, here’s hoping our elected officials have more common sense.

See Cab Stand, page 3Editorial, page 6

Talk aboutgall… page 2

This month’s Cover Cab is Khalid Khan, a native of Karachi, Pakistan. He came to Canada in 1971 via Rome and landed in Montreal. He came to Toronto in 1977

and started driving cab in 1982. Khan would like to see regulations changed so he can pick-up at the airport and Mississauga.

CoverCAB

January 2014 Vol. 29 No. 1

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by Mike Beggs

Where does the City of Toronto get off acting like they own the taxi

business?That’s a question many Toronto

taxi industry leaders have been ask-ing themselves for decades.

Some of the industry’s most in-fluential figures allege their regula-tor has routinely – and presumptu-ously -- stepped into the realm of private business arrangements, and ploughed ahead with its own agenda while ignoring their best advice and barely considering the economic health of the industry. All this while routinely over-ticketing cash-strapped cabbies and failing to heed their longstanding call for more cab stands in the downtown core, and making no attempts to fight for the removal of the devas-tating “airport exemption”.

For years, long-time owner/op-erator Gerald Manley has accused the City of paying lip service to taxi

industry input, while using it as a “licensing cash cow” (accounting for a whopping 60 percent of Mu-nicipal Licensing & Standards an-nual budget), and overstepping its jurisdiction to lay down often ill-advised policies on hard-pressed taxi drivers and operators.

“Their job is really to set fair reg-ulations, to make sure the consum-er is protected and gets service,” he declares.

Lucky Taxi owner Lawrence Eisenberg asserts that the indus-try falls under all kinds of heavy-handed regulations and fees, while enjoying none of the benefits of an employer-employee relationship.

“It has been like that for a long time,” he says. “And, we’re a pri-vate industry. We’re not funded by anybody. The province, the City don’t give us any money.”

Peter’s Taxi owner Peter Man-dronis is hoping against hope that the City will take the advice of he and fellow industry veterans in the

TTIR Final Report, scheduled to hit the Licensing & Standards Com-mittee in late January.

“It’s very frustrating. You do everything by their rules, and still they don’t appreciate what you create, or what good service we’re providing the riding public. I hope the Council, they don’t pass what they’re preparing and let the people be independent business people. It is very cruel.”

Such longstanding contentions were thrown into high relief with the June release of the TTIR Frame-work Report, which contained un-foreseen, hugely contentious rec-ommendations for the creation of a new Toronto Taxi License (TTL), and 100 percent on-demand wheel-chair accessible taxi service. Many observers say this has clouded the central issue of the Review, getting the appropriate number of plates on Toronto streets so drivers can make a living wage. And with the increased expenses and heightened competition intrinsic to these new proposals, they say it could finally break the back of their industry.

All this has created a climate ripe with frustration, apprehension, and anger, with the Final Report forth-coming.

“Listen, and then do something else,” Beck Taxi owner Gail Souter says, of the City’s m.o. “It’s really disappointing, I was na-ïve enough to believe them when they said they were going to give us a voice at city hall.

“We’ve always survived in spite of city hall. It would be nice to have their cooperation.”

Crown Taxi general manager Er-nie Grzincic agrees that the Review amounts to a familiar dog and show

from the City. “It seems to me, despite assur-

ances from (Councillor Cesar) Pa-lacio (Chair of Licensing & Stan-dards) that this is not politically driven and there’s no predeter-mined agenda, that’s definitely not the case. There most definitely is, and the driver is (Councillor Den-zil) Minnan-Wong.

“They’re reaching beyond their mark, and getting involved in a so-cial engineering project they’re re-ally not qualified for.”

Manley asserts that at a mid-November meeting attracting some 2,000 shift drivers, the City was preying on the despair of cabbies to forward its own agenda, “by in-timating that the conversion to this new license will be advantageous to them, much like they did in 1998 with the promise of a new Ambas-sador Taxi license.”

He deems this to be, “more Com-mission smoke and mirrors”, and predicts the drivers who believe owner/operated taxis will lead to cheaper prices are sadly mistaken.

“It’s going to be a disaster,” agrees Aldo Marchese, president of the Independent Cab Owners Co-operative (ICOCO). “The City is trying to work things out for their benefit and nobody else’s. I’m ap-palled by it.

“And, these drivers have one thing in mind, Me, Me, Me. No-body else. As an owner/operator, I’m out there trying to make a liv-ing for my family, too.”

Representing the interests of about 90 percent of the industry, the Toronto Taxi Alliance claims drivers would face grossly higher expenses under the conditions of the TTL, which would ultimately

translate into a higher meter rate and lower standards of service for the riding public. Souter agrees the City is attempting to use shift driv-ers as pawns.

“Really, it’s a colossal misappro-priation of power, I think, to stand in front of drivers that way and say, ‘Do you want a TTL some time later? Do you want a TTL now?’” she says.

And she suggests, “there was a lot of intimidation at that meeting” from union types trying to ride herd on drivers.

Coming out of the meeting, MLS executive director Tracey Cook proclaimed that the City had heard “loud and clear” from shift drivers. But she discounts the notion that this would unduly sway the direc-tion of the Review.

“Everybody’s input is equally important, whether it’s two drivers or 2,500 drivers,” she says. “We’re listening to everybody. It was great to see that many people come out, and they’ve all individually had an opportunity to participate.

“When we started the Review, we understood this Review was in-dustry-driven. We know we’re not going to get everybody agreeing.”

She claims the concept of a To-ronto Taxi License developed dur-ing the course of the many Review consultations.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in a standardized license and one set of rules for everybody. We looked at, ‘How do we get there?’” she re-lates.

“It was just taking the best at-tributes from the three existing li-censes and really moving toward the TTL – with the transferability, the owner must drive condition, the 24 hours on the road -- what we be-lieve is a more economically cost-efficient model. We’re eliminating some of the middle men, which the industry was very vocal about eliminating.”

While stressing that, “we don’t now yet” what will be included in the Final Report, 23-year man Khalil Talke (an Ambassador) stands behind the City’s intent to remove some layers from the in-dustry – a goal he has espoused for years as a one-time union organizer.

“The big problem came when they allowed the custodian, or the agent. The whole problem is the middle people in the industry,” he states. “Let us at the front lines ben-efit from the business -- he who is purchasing the vehicle and paying everything, not the middle people.”

He says it’s the “greediness” of these third parties that leaves both drivers, and owners victimized.

“Why can’t they help the drivers • see page 10

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At every stakeholder meeting the matter of perceived inequities

between Standard taxis and Am-bassador taxis has been men-tioned by licensing staff, but not discussed. In fact, the topic has been avoided. Likewise, the matter of an “exit strategy” for Ambassador taxi drivers when they stop driving has also been mentioned, but not discussed.

The matter of an exit strategy for the drivers of Ambassador tax-is (conversion to Standard taxi li-cences so that the owners can lease or sell them) is something that should not even be up for consid-eration as the City recently went to court to prevent exactly that from happening.

That matter is on the table be-cause the City has to comply with a provincial mandate that taxis be wheelchair accessible by a certain date. Bureaucrats and councillors are fully aware of the problems in the industry; its poor financial state; and the crippling costs as-sociated with converting to wheel-chair accessible taxis. They are also well aware of the fact that many Ambassador owners want to sell their licences; and, knowing this, someone has hatched a plan whereby licences that are sold must be replaced with wheelchair accessible taxis, which will only serve to exacerbate the problem

of low driver income and kick the problems associated with conver-sion down the road.

Ambassador drivers have clearly telegraphed their inten-tion to sell their licences in point number two of their Ambassador Conversion Program, which reads as follows: “During a four-year transition period, a maximum of 350 converted Ambassador to Standard plates can be sold in any single year”.

They have also indicated that they want the selling price to re-main high and that limiting sales to 350 taxis per annum will serve that purpose. And, in case anyone missed it, four years X 350 licenc-es = 1,400 licences, which is how many Ambassador licences were issued.

The aforementioned scheme might work, but the consequenc-es of converting Ambassadors to Standards or allowing Ambassa-dor owners to take on one or more drivers will be catastrophic for the taxi industry.

There can be no doubt that each and every one of the 10,000 shift drivers in Toronto would also like to be given a gift of $200,000 to $300,000 and/or a pension when they retire, but that is definitely not going to happen. And, if Ambassa-dor drivers wanted to own a taxi licence that they could lease in lieu of a pension, or sell for $300,000,

they have had 14 years to buy one, just as other drivers have done since 1968, and just as those driv-ers who have recently mortgaged their houses and spent $300,000 or more to purchase a licence on the open market have done.

Ambassador drivers knew what they were getting when they ac-cepted their Ambassador taxi licences; they knew that their li-cences were issued on a temporary basis; they knew that they are not transferable; they knew that they could be recalled at any time; and they signed a waiver acknowledg-ing those facts.

As for the question of the per-ceived inequities between Ambas-sador and Standard taxi operators, the implication by staff is that Am-bassador owners are the ones be-ing wronged. In fact, the exact op-posite is true, and, as the following points clearly show, it is the driv-ers and owners of the pre-existing 3,480 standard taxis who have suf-fered the inequities.

If, as many people think, the existing 3,480 Standard taxis are sufficient to service the needs of the taxi-riding public in Toronto through 2016, and, as every taxi must compete for a share of a fi-nite amount of money, then it must follow that every cent that Am-bassador taxi owners have spent on operating their taxis, fuel cost excluded, and every cent that they have earned, since 1999, has been at the expense of the drivers and owners of the pre-existing 3,480 Standard taxis. There can be no greater inequity than that.

During the 1960s, the 1970s, and until 1982, cab owner licences were issued on a per capita basis. Roughly speaking, one licence was issued for every 850 residents in Metropolitan Toronto. That was a tried-and-true issuing formula that had served Toronto’s taxi in-dustry and the taxi-riding public very well, through good times and bad, for decades. And that ratio (1:850) was calculated to ensure that drivers could earn a living wage in a reasonable length of time; that taxi fares could be kept as low as possible; and that own-ers could maintain their taxicabs to the required standards during good economic times and bad.

That formula made possible a fair division of monies between owners and drivers, and full-time drivers were able to maintain their income and their presence in the industry during recessions or busi-ness downturns by increasing the number of hours they worked un-til business returned to normal; which, in turn, ensured that own-ers took in sufficient monies to maintain their taxis to the required standards.

That formula also made it pos-

sible for drivers to earn a living wage in a five-day work-week during a normal business cycle; which, in turn, opened shifts for part-time and/or weekend drivers, many of whom eventually became full-time drivers.

In their Preliminary Report (page 27), the Taxi Review Team state that prior to 1982 Metro To-ronto issued taxi licences on a per capita basis. They go on to de-scribe that issuing formula as being “simplistic”, stating that: “This simplistic method was eventually determined to be under-estimating demand, creating a slight taxicab

shortage”. The report continues: “Beginning in 1982, a variety of models were developed that used economic, demographic and so-cial indicators of taxi demand to calculate licensing models. These models were updated every few years as the City’s current license issuing model.”

The key word in the preced-ing paragraph is “slight”; which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as meaning “insignificant” or “negligible”.

The key question is: Why would the City try to fix something that

• see page 5

Dear Tracey, read this very carefully

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by John Q. Duffy

Municipal Licensing and Standards en-forcement people are

by far the busiest of any City de-partment (apart from the police), dealing with more than 118,200 complaints in 2013 to date.

The number of complaints is actually down substantially from 172,685 complaints recorded in 2011 and 147,927 complaints in 2012 according to a staff report dated November 21, 2013, entitled “Enforcement Activities in City Divisions.”

These complaints have also giv-en rise to by far the greatest num-ber of charges and notices of any City division, with 26,468 issued so far in 2013.

In this report, none of the charg-es or notices or complaints are broken down by license category. It is not known how many of these

charges or complaints deal with taxicabs and limousines.

However, in the ongoing taxi-cab review Framework for Change document, it states that “Since 2005…Toronto’s taxicab fleet overall has experienced very low major mechanical failures, with an average major mechanical inci-dence rate of less than .6 percent.”

While the actual numbers are not stated, a graph in the Frame-work for Change report suggests that in 2012 there were about 140 complaints per 1,000 taxis, with about the same rate for Ambassa-dors and Standard taxis.

The Framework report states the numbers suggest that, “customers can expect the same level quality of customer service throughout Toronto’s taxicab industry.”

In this latest staff report on enforcement activities, in 2013 Transportation Services is the

next busiest City department, with 19,336 complaints to date in 2013, while Toronto Water has had 369 complaints this year, Toronto Building 4,444, and Fire Services 4,067.

The number of charges and no-tices is actually down from the to-tals of previous years, with 42,780 issued in 2011 and 35,106 handed out in 2012.

MLS also conducts by far the most by-law related inspections (proactive and reactive), with 196,074 done so far this year, with the next highest recorded by To-ronto Building with 160,614, then Fire at 32,149, Transportation Ser-vices at 21,168 and finally Toronto Water at 6,839.

MLS is responsible for enforc-ing more than 29 bylaws regulat-ing a variety of businesses, trades and callings, including taxicab and limousine owners, operators, dis-

patch companies and drivers.MLS also is responsible for en-

forcing the Provincial Dog Own-ers Liability Act, conducts what it calls a “proactive building audit program (MRAB), has established a Housing Occupancy Standards Team dealing with rooming hous-es City-wide and has a dedicated team enforcing the City’s anti-graffiti efforts.

According to the staff report, MLS, “is currently undergoing a realignment of its enforcement ac-tivities, which will employ its en-forcement resources across Inves-tigation Services and a new service unit, By-law Enforcement.”

In September, MLS, according to the report, hired another 17 Mu-nicipal Standards Officers as well as an unspecified number of other management and support roles.

It is also “currently undergoing an assessment of the deployment

model in respect to hours of opera-tion across each of the services, and the corresponding work volumes in each of the area/district offices.”

MLS has noted that with at least the long grass and weed com-plaints, it has started a program of sending out advisory letters which have resulted in “sustained com-pliance rates” making “thousands” of inspections unnecessary.

According to the report, Mon-day through Friday, MLS has 176 people working days, six working evenings and 10 working nights.

On Saturdays and Sundays, MLS has 12 people working days, one during the evening and six working night shift.

On statutory holidays, MLS has six people working day shift, 0 (zero) working in the evenings and two on night shift.

L&S received this report for information.

MLS staff are busy bees

by Mike Beggs

The Scarborough-based Able Atlantic Taxi is the latest Toronto cab bro-

kerage to change hands. November 29 was the closing

date, as long-time owner Jack

Chan sold his interests to Imperial/Maple Leaf Taxi partners Rashid and Khalid Chattha. The addition of Able Atlantic’s 187 cars brings their entire fleet to around 400.

“We wanted to have a presence in the East End. Plus, we wanted to grow bigger faster,” Rashid says.

“Able Atlantic has got a nice name, especially in the East End -- it’s huge in Scarborough. Other companies have tried to take their business away and couldn’t.”

This marks the continued

growth of Imperial Taxi, on the heels of last year’s purchase of Maple Leaf Taxi. The three fleets will, for the moment, continue to operate under their separate names based out of the Maple Leaf of-fices on Wynford Dr.

Hailing originally from Paki-stan, the Chattha Brothers launched Imperial Taxi in 2001. Rashid holds a Business degree and MBA from Australia, while Khalid drove taxi in Toronto for several years. They’ve carved out

a niche with the promise of, “lux-ury taxi-cab service at a regular taxi fare”, catering to a 95 per-cent corporate client base. They offer leather sets, clean cars, and a comfortable ride, and ensure their drivers are trained in safe-ty, route planning and defensive driving.

According to a 2012 study by Dr. Kathleen Greenaway of Ryer-son University, Imperial Taxi con-trols 58 percent of the city’s luxury vehicle taxi market.

“The good thing about our fleet is, Imperial is all Lincoln Town cars, and other luxury cars,” says Rashid, 42. “Our cars are classy and neat.

“It’s just the vision we have,

we want to create business for our drivers and provide better custom-er service than everybody else.”

The purchase of Maple Leaf and Able Atlantic allows them to diversify within Toronto’s $2-bil-lion per year taxi business.

What’s more, they’ve just in-troduced their “Smart Taxi” app, available to Able, Maple Leaf and Imperial drivers. According to Chattha, it’s a “full-fledged inde-pendent app” (much like Uber and Hailo), and is, “not connected to dispatch” (like several brokerage apps across the city).

The Able Atlantic sale comes in the wake of Co-op’s recent pur-chase of Crown Taxi, and the City-Kingsboro Taxi merger.

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5 January 2014

• from page 3obviously wasn’t broken?And why, between 1981 and

2006, a period during which the population of Toronto increased by 17.118%, would councillors increase the number of taxis by 93.728% if they were only adjusting for a slight undersupply of taxis?

Prior to 1982, while that “sim-plistic” issuing formula was in use, Toronto’s taxi drivers could earn a living wage in a five-day work-week (50 to 60 hours); by and large, the vast majority of stakeholders in Toronto’s taxi in-dustry were quite happy; drivers who wanted to do so could buy a taxi licence and bank managers would loan them the money to do just that, without a co-signer and without collateral; the public re-ceived very good taxi service, at a cost that was lower than in almost all other major North American cities; and the majority of Toron-to’s taxicabs were no older than four model years.

Since 1982, while the new “so-phisticated” issuing formulas have been in use, the vast majority of stakeholders in Toronto’s taxi in-dustry have been very unhappy; driver income has plummeted;

drivers have left the industry in droves because they couldn’t earn a living wage; the age of taxicabs increased dramatically because operators couldn’t afford to re-place their vehicles; the mechani-cal condition of taxis declined dramatically because operators couldn’t afford to fix them; cash-in garages went out of business because fleet operators couldn’t get drivers to drive their taxis; hundreds of taxi licences were turned in to the commission for safekeeping for the same reason; and the cost of a taxi ride in To-ronto went from being one of the lowest in North America, in 1981, to one of the most expensive in the world, in 2010.

The worst thing that any regula-tor can ever do is issue more taxi licences than are barely sufficient to serve the needs of the taxi-rid-ing public during good economic times, because monies that should go into the pockets of drivers and owners are wasted on unnecessary operating expenses.

The unnecessary operating ex-penses with respect to issuing one unneeded Ambassador taxi licence in 1999, fuel cost excluded, was $21,000 per annum, ($1,750 per

month X 12 months = $21,000 per annum).

By extension, the unnecessary expenses with respect to 1,400 unneeded Ambassador taxis, fuel costs excluded, would be $29,400,000 per annum.

Such unnecessary expenses are equivalent to taking $29,400,000 and throwing it on a bonfire…year, after year, after year.

And, as there was already an oversupply of approximately 700 Standard taxis in Toronto in 1998, that amount would be closer to $44,100,000…year, after year, after year. And that amount is be-fore the drivers of those taxis have driven one passenger.

If council had not ordered that those taxis be issued, every cent that was wasted on unnecessary operating expenses for unneces-sary taxis, and every cent that went into the pockets of the drivers of those unnecessary taxis, would have been booked by the drivers of the pre-existing 3,480 Standard taxis. There can be no greater in-equity than that.

Assuming annual income of at least $25,000 for an Ambassador driver and annual operating ex-pense of $21,000 for an Ambas-

sador taxi, fuel cost excluded, it is easy to determine that if coun-cil had not voted to issue those 1,400 unneeded Ambassador tax-is, the drivers of the pre-existing 3,480 Standard taxis would have had an additional $64,000,000 to share between them every year ($25,000 + $21,000 X 1,400 taxis = $64,400,000 per annum).

In that event, every Standard taxi would have taken in a mini-mum of $18,505 more per annum, since the last Ambassador taxi licence was issued in 2005; To-ronto’s taxi industry could, very easily, have been the best on the continent; it could also have been one of the most affordable for pas-sengers, as was the case in the 1960s and the 1970s; lower taxi fares would, in turn, have resulted in more business; and, in 2013, the industry would have had sufficient monies to convert the City’s entire taxi fleet to wheelchair accessible taxis.

Instead, council’s policies have resulted in low driver income; low operator income; decrepit taxis; high taxi fares; high rate of driver turnover; hundreds of taxi licences turned in to the Commission for safekeeping because drivers could

no longer earn a living wage driv-ing a taxi; and etcetera, all of those problems occurring as the result of council issuing too many taxis for the available business.

Prior to 1982, while using the per capita issuing formula, the City issued one taxi licence per 850 residents. As of the 2006 cen-sus, and while using the City’s so-called “indicator models”, that ratio had been reduced to one taxi per 513 residents. Changing the ratio of taxis to population from 1:850 to 1:513 went much further than adjusting for the “slight taxi-cab shortage” that the Taxi Review Team alluded to in their Prelimi-nary Report and which was used as a pretext to change the issuing formula.

This article will also be avail-able on all cell phones at www.torontotaxireform.com, as file 1001, after December 21, 2013. The on-line version will contain links to other files on the site that contain additional informa-tion with respect to this article. The site also contains other files relating to the current round of taxi reform and the problems in our industry. Al Moore

Why would City fix something that isn’t broken?

6 January 2014Editorial

John Q. Duffy Chedmount Investments Ltd.

38 Fairmount Cres. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 2H4 Tel: (416) 466-2328 Fax: (416) 466-4220

Editorial

Letters to The EditorJanuary 2014

PublisherJohn Q. Duffy

EditorBill McOuat

Art DirectionBerkeley Stat House

Contributing WritersMike Beggs

Peter McSherryIllustrator

Sandy McClelland

ADVErTISINgCall: John Duffy

Tel: 416-466-2328Booking Deadline for ads

Jan. 24, 2014If you have any

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where aspplicable)Second Class Mail Registration #40050017. No reprint of editorial or advertising material in this publication is allowed without the express written con-sent of the publisher. The publisher does not assume any responsiblility for the contents of any advertisement and all representations or warranties made in such advertis-ing are those of the advertiser not the publisher.

To the editor,

Although the industry has not seen the final tabled recommendations from

staff regarding the two years of meetings on reforming our in-dustry, there certainly have been enough consultations, the staff framework report and other in-nuendos emulating from Toronto city hall that shows our industry membership that if the recom-mendations of staff are adopted, our industry is in serious peril.

The many gatherings our mem-bership has attended at the request of staff, which I believe were only held as the Province of Ontario mandates through statute, that

these get-togethers must occur if change is to be made, has been one of the biggest dog and pony shows ever taken on by Toronto city hall and should be the poster child for smoke and mirrors.

All at city hall have listened to the industry, but they have not heard. Granted, it is a difficult pro-cess as so many of our member-ship have appeared with hidden agendas of their own, that would not lead to the betterment of our in-dustry, but it is staff’s job and duty to see through the charlatans and recommend change that is positive for our membership and the people we service, not just to continue to

• see page 13

Industry must fight City’s proposals for reform

Province should rein in city hall

To the editor,(Editor’s note: This is an open letter Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynn and her fellow Toronto MPP’s. A second related letter ad-dressed to members of the industry appears below it.)

Regardless of the Toronto Act (2006) that gives the City self gov-erning rights, it is more than ap-parent if you would take the time to look, that the City of Toronto is not a mature and responsible gov-ernment, especially dealing with taxi licensing, as was portrayed by

the then Minister of Municipal Af-fairs and Housing, the Honourable John Gerretsen at the time the Act was being written and passed.

The Province does have the power and authorities to interject in Toronto’s government when in-justices are being perpetrated on its citizens and that is what is about to happen to the 10,000 members and their families in the Toronto taxi industry, if the City adopts the recommendations from staff as to how to reform our industry.

• see page 12

At this moment an entire industry is on tenderhooks, waiting for final staff recommendations on taxicab re-form to be presented to Toronto’s Licensing and Stan-

dards Committee on January 23rd.We fervently hope the good members of L&S see as clearly as

we do the monumental disaster in the offing for every taxi industry member, should the dreadful key recommendations staff proposes in the “Framework for Change” document be approved.

The industry needed some (relatively) minor tweaks to start to undo the massive damage that was done by the last round of reforms in the late 1990’s. The City needs to start to wean everyone away from the Ambassador taxi debacle. It means tweaking the leasing rules. It means the City doing what is needed to curb the unlicensed and illegal activities of scoopers and other out-of-town vehicles stealing Toronto taxi business (i.e. start doing its enforcement job).

To require every taxi in the City to be wheelchair accessible is beyond ridiculous. We totally agree the disabled need to be better served. But this improved service can be attained without bankrupt-ing an entire industry. Reasonable proposals have been put forward from those best qualified to know, those in the taxi industry now.

To require every taxicab to send regulators daily run information is a hugely expensive and totally needless added expense. This pro-posal is bureaucratic empire building at its very worst, to be ulti-mately paid for by shift drivers and taxi lessees through higher shift and lease rates.

To create yet another level of taxi license in the City, adding addi-tional bureaucratic hoops and monumentally needless complexity to an already overly complex set of (over) regulation is totally beyond any measure of rationality.

What Toronto has, beyond any shadow of doubt, is too many taxis serving too small a passenger base. This glut of taxis, while great for the City’s revenue stream, has led directly to the present abysmally low incomes of every working cab driver on the street whether they be shift driver, lessee or owner/operator.

When Taxi News first came out, with the numbers of cabs rigidly controlled, the industry was basically in equilibrium with the mar-ketplace. With hard work all could make decent livings and could eventually retire with dignity while passengers were well served.

Then politicians and ideologues stuck their ham fingers into the mix and over the past 30 years managed to screw things up so badly that it is a tribute to the management and people-serving skills of the men and women of this industry that the City is as well-served as it is.

Even according to the “Framework for Change” document, the City and its visitors are indeed being well served. So why push now to massively restructure the industry? Is it lust for power? Is it greed for more licensing revenues? Is it a total inability to understand that taxis are businesses and not some kind of social welfare dumping ground?

We do not forget the incompetent attempt by politicians and bu-reaucrats to try to run food service carts in the “Toronto a la Carte” con/fiasco. The “Framework for Change” is the “Toronto a la Carte” disaster on a much more massive scale. Bureaucrats and politicians could not run a business to save their souls. It is folly for them to even try. Yet they keep trying and failing.

There are some relatively minor points in the “Framework for Change” worthy of L&S consideration. High on that short list are more cabstands and better enforcement against illegal operators.

So we are asking L&S to please, very cautiously and judiciously, cherry pick the recommendations for those that will actually help the industry and improve incomes, while sending the vast majority of staff’s (bad) ideas back for serious reconsideration.

We at Taxi News wish everyone the very best in the New Year.

Dear Cesar Palacio

On Page 5 of The To-ronto Sun of Decem-ber 5, 2013, there’s

a photo of Councillor Denzil

Minnan-Wong and a 300-word story under the fawning cutline “He Wants it Better.” In the story, Minnan-Wong is painted as being for “better cars, better drivers, better service.” And he is quoted as being both an ad-vocate of driver-owned-driver-

driven cabs and of all City cabs eventually being wheelchair-capable accessible taxis. T h e Minnan-Wong story was in jux-

taposition to a Page 4 Sun story by Simon Kent, in which criti-cisms of “framework” changes are made by Gail Souter of the Toronto Taxi Alliance (TTA) and, to my way of thinking, es-pecially by cab owner Jafar Mir-salari, who says he will be put

out of business if the changes under consideration are put into effect.

Mr. Mirasali and thousands of

others, say I. Out of business and, with their families, ONTO THE BACKS OF THE RATEPAYERS, not even maybe. And, too, the City’s 6- or 7,000 shift drivers are much more vulnerable to having their incomes evaporated than is a plate owner like Mr. Mirsalari.

But why does The Sun go to Councillor Minnan-Wong, not to the councillors on Licensing & Standards, to get the answers to the protesters concerns?

Does anybody really think that Paula Fletcher or Glenn De Baer-emaeker or any of the rest of the councillors on Licensing & Stan-dards have anything but a shoe-maker’s understanding of the taxi business and its complicated work-ings? In the past Councillors Mike Del Grande and Rob Ford - former members of L&S - honestly admit-ted that the industry is complicated and, as Mr. Del Grande - a smart man - once said in effect, “I just

try to understand and I hope that I vote the right way.”

Councillor Minnan-Wong was the titular head of the 1998 re-view - so he might well seem like an absolute taxi industry genius to the rest of the councillors as he has experience the others don’t have.

In the Land of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King.

The Sun goes to Denzil because he’s the One-Eyed King among those who can’t see or can hardly see at all. As many have long sus-pected, he is the man behind the current taxi industry review - and The Sun probably knows him to be

• see page 11

7 January 2014Comment

BystanderTheby Peter McSherry

This ‘Framework for Change’doesn’t know the half of it

Going to a Mississauga Public Advisory Commit-tee meeting is certainly an eye-opening experi-ence.

Actually I’d planned to do a kind of “compare and con-trast” essay this month on how sister cities Mississauga and Toronto deal with taxi and limousine matters, but for some reason I couldn’t find the Toronto Taxicab Advisory Com-mittee meeting when and where I thought it was going to be held. Don’t ask – it’s too long and too sorry a story.

Let’s leave it that I can chat a bit about the PVAC meet-ing I attended early in December. I’d heard they would be dealing with wheelchair accessible transportation and on-demand service and thought it would be a useful experience. I was not disappointed, but for unexpected reasons. To tell the truth, I’d almost forgotten how well the PVAC works.

For a write up of what happened and what was decided, see Mike Begg’s story elsewhere in this paper.

Let’s start with this: two City councillors sit on the com-mittee with Nando Iannicca chairing and Ron Starr Vice-Chairing. Question: when was the last time anyone saw any Toronto City councillor attend any TAC meeting, let alone commit the time and effort needed to be actively involved in TAC work?

City staff was there to help: it was not there running the show. (Imagine that!)

When I arrived I came in on a deputation from a mem-ber of Mississauga’s taxi industry who made comments and asked questions of the committee.

Do you know what? He actually got answers to his ques-tions, and actively engaged in a Q and A session with the Chair and other committee members. It seemed to be a use-ful and productive exchange for all.

Others from the industry made brief presentations on agenda items, outlining concerns. There was more active Q and A. Again, these certainly seemed to be productive exchang-es. So the first exchange I watched was not an unusual departure from normal practice. The committee apparently listens to and cares about what people in their industry have to say.

Then a question arose where no one on the Mississauga side of the border could give an intelligent answer.

But someone (and I’ll kneecap him later) piped up that I was in the room and could likely help.

The question was if the consultant’s recommendations were followed by Toronto City Staff in the draft report of the current taxicab review.

After grumbling that I hated becoming part of the story I gave the committee some background and answered the question by saying that staff followed some of the recom-mendations/options presented by the consultant and others came from their own internal deliberations.

I should have said the consultant did come up with vari-ous options for Toronto to consider on specified issues and staff picked what it felt to be the more appropriate choices. But other recommendations in the draft report were straight from staff.

I also commented that nobody outside of City Staff and perhaps a few political eyes, actually saw the original con-sultant’s report before staff ordered a rewrite. I’ve been told that the requested changes were basically to use appropriate terminology, but I did say I’ve been around far too long and am old and cynical and who the heck knows for sure.

Then, and I was dumbfounded to see this, after the com-mittee covered the official agenda it asked if there was any New Business arising from the industry or public. New

Business? When has anyone seen New Business on ANY City of Toronto committee or advisory group agenda? Ever? Someone actually came up and made a brief presentation, in response to which the Chair asked for a written submission detailing the concerns.

Compare this to Toronto’s TAC, where I’m told, the audi-ence is not allowed to made submissions on issues and is supposed to sit quietly and say nothing. (I really do have to attend some of these TAC meetings. I’ve really fallen down on this and pledge to do better.)

After the meeting, members of the audience, and there couldn’t have been more than 10 or so people attending, joined me and we chatted about this and that for a good half an hour.

I really enjoyed this exchange, and learned stuff I didn’t know and was reminded of things I had known about, but had forgotten.

For example, I commented that I’ve become thoroughly disenchanted by Toronto’s approach to most regulatory is-sues, using a big stick, as in: “Do what we tell you to do and like it.” This as opposed to using a carrot, like creating in-centives instead of fear and penalties. You know, work with people instead of ramming changes down people’s throats.

I was referring to getting people to make the immense in-vestment in accessible taxi service. People in Mississauga warned me specifically not to offer transferrable plates to those getting into the accessible taxi business. Mississauga tried it. These vehicles ran for five years. Then operators got out of this service as soon as possible while keeping the plates. Let’s not see Toronto make the same mistake. I was also warned that drivers there with accessible vans regularly refuse disabled passengers because they supposedly are too much work for the money paid. This has happened in other cities.

I have repeatedly cited the PVAC as a model Toronto could or should aspire to emulate. The Chair, Councillor Iannicca, pointedly commented that PVAC recommendations were virtually guaranteed to be passed by their City Council. It seems the PVAC is respected.

Granted, it took decades for the PVAC to get to where it is now, but what a breath of fresh air.

I hope all had a great Christmas and New Years, and I certainly look forward to seeing what is coming down the pipe at Licensing and Standards on January 23rd.

Toronto has a lot to learn from Mississauga’s PVAC

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I know it is hard to believe but 2013 is drawing to a close and January 2014 will

be upon us before we know it. January is named after the Ro-man god Janus who had two

faces, one looking forward and one looking back. An appropri-ate month as the taxi industry is also looking back over the last

two years of review meetings and forward to the coming fi-nal report of the taxi review and certainly describes how Toronto City Hall has dealt with the To-ronto taxi industry for the past

50 years, showing a zero posi-tive direction for our member-ship as far as putting the indus-try back on a path of service and

financial prosperity.Will our industry finally get the

long awaited final report of the taxi review? After two previous can-cellations of the final report one can only wait with some trepida-

tion as to whether we will see the final report or not at the scheduled date. Is third time a charm?

I don’t want to seem too cyni-cal so let’s say we finally see the completed taxi review at the al-located time. It is supposed to be presented at the January Licens-ing and Standards meeting. If one is so inclined one can go down to the meeting and make a deputa-tion, however after over two years of deputations, if you haven’t de-puted yet then this will be too little too late for you. Most likely all deputations at this meeting will be limited to three minutes and the committee members have already been fully briefed and will not be making any changes to the staff report at this meeting. The time for making presentations is over; the time for action is now needed. Perhaps it is prudent at this time for our membership to boycott this January meeting and send a clear message we are less than happy with staff’s recommendations and consider an appeal to the Province.

One can be sure that the issue of too many cabs on the road will not be addressed, nor will plate own-ership. The City of Toronto will make no changes that will lower City income so one can count on more and more taxi drivers being pushed through the cab training school. This will not only guaran-tee income for the City but offset the large number of drivers leav-ing an industry that allows them no opportunity to build and ex-pand a business or own more than

one plate.There is a continuing rumour

that after this review the City may

very well look at taxi availability during the Pan-Am games and in-crease the number of cabs regular and accessible ostensibly for this event, but changes will be of a per-manent nature.

Speculating on what will or will not be passed is futile, so I will not get involved in specula-tion. What one can be certain of is that even though the industry has rebelled against the idea that all cabs should be wheelchair acces-sible, decisions made in New York will no doubt end up filtering into Toronto.

A legal challenge by accessible groups was won and the end re-sult will be that in the future half of all plate (medallion) transfers annually will be required to be wheelchair accessible for yellow cabs in New York. The difference in New York to Toronto is that all accessible customers who use a cab pay the meter rate and are not subsidized as they are in Toronto. Toronto has a mandate under pro-vincial legislation to provide sub-sidized service which costs the City of Toronto millions of dollars a year through the TTC operation. This makes comparing Toronto and New York unfair as costs and income vary dramatically.

There is a strong possibility that after the review is over all future changes to the taxi industry will be accomplished through administra-tive changes rather than By-Law

changes. This has been tried in the past and failed miserably but it is evident that City councillors again

no longer want to deal with our in-dustry so, as usual they will take another step backwards that will lead our industry into more peril and after the carnage has occurred, we will most likely return to the ineffective process we are now ex-periencing We need to administer our industry more efficiently and increase response time between an issue arising and a solution being developed. With technology con-stantly developing it is important that the MLS makes sure that all licensed companies operate on a level playing field and offer the same services to the taxi riding public and the taxi operators.

One of the issues that is creat-ing quite a buzz on “LinkedIn” is the problem specifically in North America regarding virtual and non-virtual cab companies. This is an issue which I hope the review will address and if it doesn’t it will open the door to unlicensed drivers and companies operat-ing and under cutting established brokerages. This issue has been openly discussed at meetings and is already creating problems in To-ronto. Virtual companies operating in Toronto are creating insurance, responsibility and safety issues. Typically virtual companies have no contact phone numbers which makes it impossible for Police, LEO’s, customers or drivers to immediately contact the virtual company. This is an issue which should be immediately resolved.

Anyhow, we shall see what the taxi review recommends and deal with the changes as they materi-alize. One should remember that the last review changed the plate ownership By-Law and created the Ambassador program and our in-dustry is still struggling to come to grips with this, 15 years later.

I wish everyone a Happy and prosperous New Year and hope that the coming year brings you all better business.

Sincerely, Louis M. Seta, Ambassador 1275

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The City of Mississauga is poised to put 33 more taxis on the streets.

At a December 9 meeting of its Public Vehicle Advisory Commit-tee (PVAC) this staff recommenda-tion was received, and will return to PVAC for a vote on February 4. It would boost the city’s plate count from 635, to 668.

The proposal met with mixed re-actions.

PVAC City Area Taxi Drivers rep Harsimar Singh Sethi warned that the issuance of 33 additional plates, “is going to flood the market.”

“Is it possible to award 10 to 20 plates?” he asked.

City Area Taxicab Owners rep Paramvir Singh Niggar suggested the issuances be split between 2014, and 2015.

Meanwhile, veteran owner/operator Ron Baumber scoffed, “There’s cabs everywhere. They sit for two hours at a time.”

On the streets one 10-year man agreed, saying he finds it tough to make his weekly rent.

“Business is too slow,” he said. “This is the busy season, but just wait until January, it’s going to be dead.”

Blue & White Taxi general man-ager and PVAC Elected At Large member Baljit Singh Pandoori stood behind the staff recommenda-tion, and suggested getting on with these issuances as soon as possible.

“It’s the busiest time of the year. And it has been three years (since the last issuance). PVAC is here to recommend and approve, so why not do something now in Decem-ber. If you wait until March, we will slow down. If you start issuing at that time, you might flood the mar-ket.”

But PVAC Chair, Councillor Nando Iannicca advised, “We must give the public and industry some time to respond”, recommending this item return to PVAC on Febru-ary 4. This was moved by Ward 6 Councillor Ron Starr, and carried.

Introduced in 1998, Mississau-ga’s plate issuance model is applied every two years, in even-numbered years. However, in the 2010 Re-view, staff found a number of in-consistencies in the data, and the 2010 Report was not approved by PVAC.

Staff collected and applied data to the plate issuance model in 2012, and determined that 57 new plates are required. They then corrected data in the 2010 analysis and de-

termined that 24 plates need to be withdrawn – resulting in a net rec-ommended increase of 33 plates.

However, Licensing Staff have concerns with the existing issuance model, and, “don’t feel it appropri-ately reflects the requirements for taxi service, or the needs of indus-try.” And in the interim the acces-sibility issue has taken on a much higher profile, with the Accessibil-ity For Ontarians With Disabilities Act stating that by 2025 all people with disabilities must be guaranteed an on-demand wheelchair acces-sible taxi ride.

At its June meeting, PVAC passed a recommendation to hire an outside consultant to address the issuance of taxi plates, both stan-dard and wheelchair accessible, for 2014, with a $100,000 budget ap-proved by Council in December. Mississauga is already in the midst of weighing out a recommendation for 100 percent on-demand wheel-chair accessible taxi service.

In the interim, the City will issue any plates called for in 2012 under the existing weighted model, which factors in five criteria: Trips Dis-patched By Brokerages; Increase in the Business Industry; Population Related Factors; Information Per-taining To Drivers/Operators; and License Value.

Iannicca observed that, “In 2015, you might get a different issuance model altogether. So, we’ve got to see this ship to shore as we see fit.”

Of hiring the consultant, he add-ed, “We need a fresh set of eyes.”

PVAC Citizen member Nabil Nassar emphasized the need to set proper criteria for the consultant.

“There are half a dozen major jurisdictions around the world that are doing exactly what we’re doing, and there are no two jurisdictions with the same model. We’ve got a lot of work to do, setting up a model that’s appropriate for us, and will fit the city of Mississauga,” he said.

In a December 4 letter to the City, long-time owner/operator Mark Sexsmith noted that the City is ap-proaching the 10th anniversary of its last major Review, and “in the last decade there have been changes in technology, taxi broker business plans and many other aspects of the business, and that, the result is some sections of the by-law being out of date.”

One of the prime industry propo-nents of the 100 percent accessible model, he said the contents of the Region of Peel’s new Accessible

• see page 12

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100 percent accessibility ‘an abomination’• from page 2(with this Review)?” he adds.

“If the drivers don’t see changes, I’m telling you there’s going to be a lot of mess in this city. They are the ones who are suffering.”

More than 40 years on the road, Dufort shares similar sentiments.

“All I’m asking for is something really, really simple, just make it a level playing field for all drivers and owners -- never mind the two tiers of licenses. (We need) one set of rules for all the cabs, so we’re all on equal footing doing the same job,” he says. “(Establish) one type of plate. I don’t care if it’s a TTL or what, but I don’t need all the strings that come with it. I don‘t need 100 percent wheelchair accessibility. For what? What’s the cost?”

Ambassador Wilma Walsh is among those to call this latter rec-

ommendation, “an abomination”. Like many others in the industry she says there is minimal demand for these expensive $60,000-plus vans among the disabled commu-nity (who will continue to take the subsidized $3 WheelTrans ride), and able-bodied riders who have perennially eschewed getting into these awkward vehicles and can be expected to take limos instead. Worse yet, government has failed to step forward with any kind of purchase incentives for operators.

“They’re basically saying they need 6 percent accessible service for the Pan Am Games, in 2015,” says long-time shift driver Gary Walsh. “What market analysis have you done?

“This is a business. It’s not a charity. It’s not a government agen-cy. You want more people to have

accessible cabs, then fund it.” According to Grzincic, both

Crown and Co-op Taxi tried to in-troduce on-demand accessible ser-vice in the past, and had to scrap it because, “it wasn’t economically viable.”

Dufort notes the stipulations of the AODA require only a percent-age of the taxi fleet be accessible, while guaranteeing that any dis-abled person wanting an on-de-mand accessible taxi can get one.

“Why is the City trying to go above the Disability Act?” he asks. “They’re not the ones who have to pay the bill.”

“It makes me feel as a business-man, I’m just a pawn in the game of being regulated. They create all the rules, and if you don’t want to play by the rules, you’re out.”

According to Cook, the model for 100 percent wheelchair acces-sibility evolved from the dictates of the AODA. But she stresses the City is proposing a phased-in ap-proach.

“Our report targets a date of 2037 to get there,” she says. “And going forward, I don’t think we’re talking about vans being carved up.”

She says this recommendation is being reviewed, in light of the heavy industry opposition, but is, “not off the table”. And she, “defi-nitely believes in it from a Human Rights perspective.”

Dufort points to the inconsis-tency of the MLS in regulation of many different businesses. He notes a barber shop owner can choose his own hours and rates, rent his chairs out, and put his shop up for sale when he’s ready to retire -- none of which the Ambassadors are allowed to do, at present.

“Yet, we go to the same place to get our business licenses,” he points out.

While acknowledging the many complaints about the City’s intru-sion into private business affairs, Cook counters that, “Some people in the industry expect us to do a lot more – for instance, if they’ve had a plate taken away from them, and are left with a car they have no use for. Part of the Review is looking at what is appropriate regulation.”

Furthermore, she considers the taxi industry “unique”, with higher safety expectations on it than the

many other industries regulated by the MLS.

“If I walk into a restaurant as a member of the public, I can walk out (if I’m dissatisfied),” she of-fers. “When I get into a taxicab, I don’t know who is driving the taxi. That’s why it’s so critically impor-tant we get the appropriate require-ments for the industry.”

According to Manley, the City’s penchant for poking its nose into the taxi business dates back to 1965, “when they allowed the first Standard plate to have intrinsic value.”

“They entered into the busi-ness of the taxi industry, instead of standing behind their mandate just to regulate,” he recalls. “That’s very apparent by the amount of rev-enues they generate from us, which is in excess of $10 million a year, and violates provincial statutes -- which say Licensing revenues must be on a cost recovery basis. They charge in excess of $4,600 just to transfer a plate.”

Grzincic suggests that many of the problems they’re addressing in the Review, “really came to the sur-face and became acute problems” as a result of some errors in the 1998 Reform -- creating the fixed market for standard plates, and policies that discouraged multi-leasing.

“The lack of being able to oper-ate in a transparent fashion has cre-ated a lot of the problems regard-ing middle men,” he comments. “They’re not permitting multiple leasing, this is a key problem. And by fixing the supply of standard plates, they’ve created an undue demand of a fixed commodity amongst drivers,” he offers. “As usual, I don’t think they thought that out, what the repercussions (would be).”

And Dufort maintains the City “created a monster” when it al-lowed absentee owners, and began collecting the money to transfer plates from one person to another, to collect a profit for the City.”

One and all point to the 1998 Review when Councillor Howard Moscoe and Minnan-Wong pushed through the Ambassador program with the intention of devaluing standard plate values – an experi-ment which went disastrously awry.

While she wasn’t around for the ‘98 Review, Cook responds, “What I do understand is, the 1998 Review was really driven by the public, and the condition of the taxicabs raised the ire of the public. I understand the problems of moving toward the owner/operator model.

“I believe that was the intent, and I think it has borne fruit. Certainly, our statistics show an improvement in cab conditions and overall ser-vice of the public.”

And in that respect, she consid-ers the Ambassador program, “a success”.

Many industry leaders have con-demned the City for bringing in a figure (Cook) with no previous knowledge of the complicated cab industry for this critical Review -- particularly given the average Toronto councillor’s lack of under-standing of, and general indiffer-ence to the taxi industry.

“She was given a huge task, with very little background. I would think we’d deserve better than councillors who don’t want to lis-ten or meet with us,” Souter com-ments.

“How do you make decisions, if you don’t have a full understanding of it?”

Eisenberg suggests if such mea-sures go through it will be a heavy blow to fleet operators like himself, while dissuading those drivers who wouldn’t be able to make a living with the TTL.

“It’s 50 years of my life,” he says.

“The problem is, they’re trying to dictate to the industry, operate, and run the business. That’s not what they’re supposed to be doing. They have no legal right to do that and eventually this will go to court. The day this report comes out and they try to change it to the TTL is the day they have an injunction on their hands – the same day.”

Eisenberg led an unsuccessful legal challenge against the city in 2003 as president of the now-de-funct Toronto Taxicab Owners and Operators Association.

“The industry is getting to the point now, this is the best resort – to make a stand is in a courtroom,” he adds.

“You have to fight these people every day of the year.”

Dufort complains that, “They get to do whatever the hell they want, in the public’s interest. That’s the fallback every time, to look after the general public.

“And every time we criticize them, they say we will deregulate. That’s their answer to everything -- either that, or sue us.”

Forty-two years on the road, Gary Walsh has been hired by his owner to do a review and investiga-tion of all 44 recommendations in

• see page 14

• from page 7that. And the politician in Denzil, who may now see himself as our next mayor, knows enough to have a good-sounding, concerned un-derstanding of the industry that in no way answered the knowledge-able concerns put up by Mirsalari and Souter.

And, of course, he is trying to open up a huge new revenue source for the City, isn’t he?

In fact, Minnan-Wong is con-juring up a civic disaster because none of what he is suggesting is in any way cost effective within the industry.

By itself, the Toronto Taxi Li-cense, once effected, is a $30-a-day chop into both the incoming revenues and the profits of shift drivers who, on a yearly basis, are now making less than $65-a-12-hour shift.

Add in the rest of what Denzil wants to do to these drivers and they will be paying to work more days than not.

For them it will be an obvious case of No Cigar.

Other classes of driver have only a better chance of survival. And most of them have invested many thousands of dollars in ex-pensive equipment.

Bluntly put, if “The Framework for Change” is meant to be any-thing but a formula for an indus-try disaster, then the document is hugely and obviously incompe-tent.

• • • • • •For five or six years at least, I

have agonized over writing this story ever since I realized with certainty that the enormous prices at which Toronto Standard taxi plates were selling in no way re-flected what a driver could make - and that there had to be another reason for the ridiculously high sale prices of the plates with which drivers can make much less than the minimum wage.

Once I began pondering the question I very soon came to know what the answer must be: that Canada is what is being sold and the taxi plate is essentially an en-abling throw-in of some value.

At the first Taxi Review infor-mational session at City Hall in late June, I encountered an East Indian man who was beaming like he had just won the lottery. I asked him, “What are you so happy about?”

“I’ve just bought a plate for $400,000,” he said jubilantly.

When I told him he might not have made a good deal, he said with obvious confidence that I was wrong - that, “The plate will be worth three quarters of a million dollars in three years.”

Then, at the next meeting, or perhaps at the one after that, an-

other East Indian man - a Sikh - spoke to the Taxi Review about his having paid $350,000 for a plate in order “to leave something to my kids.” And he said he didn’t know that there was “bullshit like this” - meaning the Taxi Review - which he clearly understood was out to make his plate worth much less than he had paid for it.

Then that man came and sat beside me, and I took it upon my-self to ask him some questions: “Did you buy the plate in India?” I asked. “Yes,” was his answer.

“Did the seller tell you that buy-ing the plate would make it easier for you to get into Canada?”

“Yes,” again.“Did the seller tell you about

Canada’s social welfare system?” “Yes.”“Did the seller tell you about

medicare in Canada?”“Yes.”“Did the seller tell you that your

kids could go to university here?” “Yes.”“Were you told that the govern-

ment would lend money to your kids to go to university?”

“Yes.”I didn’t ask the man if the seller

told him that buying the plate and bringing big money into Canada would make it easier for him to bring all of his relatives here, but I’m confident the answer would have been “Yes” to that as well.

In a Toronto Sun story of Sun-day, October 8, 2013, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong is quoted as follows: “There are around 5,000 plates out there at a rough value estimate of $250,000 each. That makes for $1.4 billion in total, a figure that is appreciating annu-ally...We have to ask just what the public can expect in return from an industry with assets valued like that?”

Well, from this, it seems that Councillor Minnan-Wong doesn’t know the difference between a plate and a permission to operate, and also that he is mathematically challenged to the extent that he is not very good at multiplication. As well, as it seems, the councillor is taking credit for a supposed taxi-industry bonanza that he thinks he understands but apparently may not.

I suspect, too, that Councillor Minnan-Wong may not grasp that a sleezy seller and the buyer would make an agreement - at the seller’s insistence - to report the sale price at a considerably lower price than the plate was actually being sold for.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s forgive Councillor Minnan-Wong his small shortcomings and get on to his biggest one.

During the 1998 Review I was in a Committee Room discussion

at Metro Hall when Councillor Minnan-Wong came in eating an apple. He listened for two or three minutes before he made the point that he thought we all needed to know: that the equity taxi plates belonged to the City.

Which was another way of say-ing that the plates didn’t belong to the plate owners to whom the City had sold the plates at high cost years before.

Councillor Minnan-Wong wants better alright - and more than that he wants more. Much more than “the highest licensing fees in the world” that the City is already bleeding Toronto taxi drivers for. He wants what Howard Moscoe wanted - he wants the City to be the actual renter of the plates that it sold to mere taxi drivers and taxi industry others years ago at high prices, both in terms of onerous work conditions and money.

In my view, the Toronto Taxi Li-cense is nothing more or less than a quick device to take the equity value out of the Standard plates. It won’t last six years.

Councillor Minnan-Wong wants to attack private property and paint that as being his commitment to a better taxi industry - “better cars, better drivers, better service.”

Anybody who owns anything at all should watch out for Council-lor Minnan-Wong. They could be next.

And, of course, other council-lors are following him because, “the plates belong to the City” and Councillor Minnan-Wong knows all about the cab business, doesn’t he?

Some people in the industry have reasons to have been down to city hall to tell the politicians that the drivers are really making a lot more money than they are in fact making.

Among them would be the kind of taxi people who feel entitled to sell Canada under the guise of selling a taxi plate – to profit them-selves.

How would the buyers of these overpriced plates recoup their money? Is it not obvious that, di-rectly or indirectly, they would get it back from the working drivers in the form of much higher shift rates?

Is it not obvious, too, that many other plate owners would up the rental cost of their plates to con-form to “the market price”?

And is it not obvious that there has to be an end to this at some point - else the drivers will make nothing at all – and that these peo-ple are, in fact, screwing all plate owners, including themselves – because the more they get, the less everybody else, including the pub-lic, will get? And there will be a reaction to that.

I have written this story be-cause, as matters sit now, the City is very likely to win its day - and all the plate owners will be left with is a legal action that the City will avoid indefinitely.

I think this fight has to be fought with the truth.

More so, I have written this story because my first priority in all of my taxi writing is the driv-ers, most especially the shift driv-ers. Like the equity plate owners, these drivers will not be wanted in Councillor Minnan-Wong’s taxi industry. Like the plate owners, they, too, are to be starved out of existence.

Merry Christmas to all who cel-ebrate Christmas and Happy Holi-days to those who don’t - even to the well-heeled, gravy train-riding, blood-sucking City exploiters and

to the One-Eyed King himself. I hope they all have a morally better New Year.

Peter McSherry is a taxi driver of 42 years experience as well as the author of three published books, including Mean Streets: Confessions of a Nighttime Taxi Driver. He can be reached at bi-gred@ontariointernet.com.

11 January 2014

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Minnan-Wong makes all the right noises…

12 January 2014 Letters to The Editor

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City must look beyond licensing revenue• from page 6

Add to that the Province’s man-dates for wheelchair van acces-sible on-demand servicing and the 35 year-old injustice of the Airport Exemption that has cost our mem-bers well over one billion dollars in lost taxi revenues (and allowing the Airport taxis and limousines to pick up in our city free of munici-pal licensing fees while we have to pay a pre-arranged $15 per fare pick-up fee at Pearson Airport) clearly begs the question: How

does both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario expect the Toronto taxi industry to fund these regulations and support their fami-lies while you allow the unfairness to continue?

We haven’t been able to get the City of Toronto to look past the licensing revenues that they col-lect from our industry, which now is in excess of $10 million dollars annually, to do the right thing and they continue to infract provincial statute as to collecting licensing

revenues on a cost recovery basis only. Add to this the fact the Prov-ince of Ontario infracts the basic point of pick up legislation that was passed in 1978 and the Char-ter of Rights and Freedoms section 15 Equality Rights. When is the Toronto taxi industry membership going to be given the fair and level playing field and justice that we so rightfully deserve?

Premier Wynn, you are not only the chief representative for the Province of Ontario but an MPP

for Don Valley West, in the City of Toronto and it is your duty and responsibility, along with all the other 20 members of the Toronto MPP caucus, to ensure that our membership is receiving fair treat-ment from not only the City of To-ronto but the Province of Ontario. This is not happening and we are requesting an interjection from the Province to right all the wrongs that are happening to our member-ship from both the City’s and the Province’s unfair legislations. On

behalf of all of our membership, I would request a reply to this email with something of a positive na-ture that will show our 10,000 members, and their families in the Toronto taxi industry, that the Province of Ontario cares and will protect all of its citizens against in-justices, not just the affluent few.

Our membership in its entirety, is looking forward to a response from the Premier at her earliest convenience.

Gerry Manley

To the editor

As I believe the only op-portunity we will have in the future to get any

kind of justice for our member-ship would have to come from the Province, here is an updated list of the 21 Toronto MPP’s with their names, constituent areas they represent in the City of Toronto, phone numbers and email addresses. All our in-dustry members, not just one

or two, must start some sort of dialogue with their MPP and get their support to have the Prov-ince look into what the City is planning to do to our industry, and the injustices that are and have been for 35 years emu-lating from the Province itself which are only compounding our problems.

I am doing my part and have opened up meetings with my MPP and sent numerous documents to

the Province on our issues outlin-ing what the City is planning and stressing that the Province needs to stop and rectify these issues of concern. The list shows the ar-eas each MPP represents and our members need to begin to take a proactive approach, contact their member, point out the injustices and enlist their support to stop them.

For example, it has been impos-sible for me to fathom how three to

four MPP’s from Brampton have for 35 years managed to override twenty MPP’s from the City of Toronto when it comes to the un-fairness of the Airport Exemption issue. You now couple that with what the Province wants the cities to do for on-demand wheelchair van servicing and how those cit-ies want to dump the expense onto the members in the taxi industry, and it is apparent we are now con-fronted by a two-headed monster,

not just a one-headed monster.The Province and the cities

throughout Ontario, especially the City of Toronto, had better get an understanding of what their legis-lations have done or are about to do to service in the taxi industry. Only our membership can bring these problems to the attention of our elected representatives and make them understand their regu-lations will destroy our industry.

Gerry Manley

Here is the list of Toronto’s Members of Provincial Parliament, the electoral district they represent and their contact information:

Laura Albanese (York-South - Weston)416-243-7984 lalbanese.mpp@liberal.ola.org

Bas Balkissoon (Scarborough – Rouge River)416-297-5040 bbalkissoon.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Lorenzo Berardinetti (Scarborough Southwest)416-261-9525 lberardinetti.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Donna H. Cansfield (Etobicoke – Centre)416-234-2800 dcansfield.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Mike Colle (Eglinton – Lawrence)416-781-2395mcolle.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Cheri DiNovo Parkdale – High Park) 416-781-2395dinovoc-qp@ndp.on.ca

Honourable Brad Duguid (Scarborough – Centre)416-615-2183 bduguid.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Honourable Eric Hoskins (St. Paul’s) 416-656-0943 ehoskins.mpp.co@liberal-ola.org

Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough – Guildwood)416-281-2787 mhunter.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Monte Kwinter (York – Centre)416-630-0080 mkwinter.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Honourable Tracy MacCharles (Pickering – Scarborough East)905-509-0336 tmaccharles.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Rosario Marchese (Trinity – Spadina)416-603-9664mmarchese-co@ndp.on.ca

Honourable Glen R. Murray (Toronto – Centre)416-972-7683gmurray.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Michael Prue (Beaches – East York)416-690-1032mprue-co@ndp.on.ca

Shafiq Qaadri (Etobicoke – North)416-745-2859sqaadri.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Jonah Schein (Davenport)416-535-3158jschein-co@ndp.on.ca

Honourable Mario Sergio (York – West)416-743-7272msergio.mpp@liberal.ola.org

Peter Tabuns (Toronto – Danforth)416-461-0223tabunsp-qp@ndp.on.ca

Soo Wong (Scarborough – Agincourt)416-297-6568swong.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Honourable Kathleen O. Wynne (Don Valley West)416-425-6777kwynne.mpp@liberal.ola.org or www.premier.gov.on.ca

Honourable David Zimmer (Willowdale)416-733-7878dzimmer.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org Gerry Manley(416) 948-1921gerry.manley@taxidriversafety.netgerryhmanley@gmail.comWebsite: www.taxidriversafety.net

Only you can save the taxi industry!

Future is looking after older folks• from page 9Transportation Master Plan “changes the whole ballgame, it’s so broad-based.” At October PVAC, Region of Peel Transpor-tation Principal Planner Hilary Calavitta spoke to the demand for accessible transportation due to population growth, the need to understand and plan for future ac-cessible needs, partnerships with surrounding municipalities, opera-

tional and financial models, stake-holders, and future open houses.

“The bottom line is, the future of the taxi industry is looking after older folks. We are getting needi-er,” Sexsmith added.

He stressed accessibility is “a basic human right” under the laws of Ontario, and claimed the de-mand for accessible taxi service presents, “a huge opportunity” for Mississauga cab operators.

At the moment, Mississauga has 36 accessible taxis, 22 of them con-tracted out to Peel TransHelp.

Nassar suggested treading care-fully on this issue, and the need for hard numbers on the actual need for this service within the city. With the same 100 percent recommendation included in their ongoing Taxi Review, many To-ronto industry leaders have warned about the inherent perils involved

– between the inflated expenses that would be facing operators, and the potentially minimal demand for these accessible vans.

“If we turn 100 percent, the shape of the industry is going to change. You will get some mem-bers of the public who refuse to take it. It will drive the customers to call a limo, an illegal out-of -own taxi, or a private hire vehicle,” he offered.

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13 January 2014Letters to The EditorCity refuses to acknowledge history of incompetence• from page 6fill the city hall’s coffers with li-censing revenues that are exorbi-tant and unnecessary.

Because members at city hall have continually refused to look back at the serious mistakes made in the past regarding its taxi in-dustry, it is more than apparent to me that all at 100 Queen Street West do not know enough or care enough about the industry, our membership and the people we service, to be able to recommend what is truly needed to put us back on the road of recovery while keeping a high level of service that our consumers deserve.

There are actually dozens of dif-ferent areas I can use for examples of what I have just stated but to keep this preliminary report to a responsible size, I will refer to just a few.

The original meeting held in December 2012, should have been the first indicator of where this ref-ormation of the taxi industry was headed and what the City had in mind for us. This was supposed to be held to set an agenda as recom-mended by our membership and staff combined. When we arrived, we found staff had already put an eight point agenda on its screen and there were many attendees that were not taxi industry mem-bers and should not have had any input in recommending changes in our industry.

The Appropriate Number of Taxis – This was and has been the only agenda item that all agreed must be rectified and staff even went to the extreme measure of hiring an outside consultant at the cost of many thousands of dollars, who stated the City has an “ad-equate” number of taxis. This is a copout of mammoth proportion and makes me wonder whether that was Dr. Cooper’s original recommendation or was he gently persuaded to change it to some-thing staff wanted his report to say? My personal meetings with Dr. Cooper led me to believe that he would not have said a general term like “adequate” that can be taken in so many ways. The end result was that this item never was dealt with, as if it had been, it would have cost the City licensing revenues and of course they would have to admit their 1998 taxi ref-ormation recommendations were flawed.

•Ambassador Taxis – Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the history of our industry, real-izes that these permits should have never been issued. The City flatly refused to do an economic impact study at the time as they knew the report would have stated there was

no need for additional taxis on the streets of Toronto as they were already well over 700 taxis more than the current per capita formula recommended.

The City continued on with this sinister program for two reasons. First and most important, it dra-matically raised the licensing rev-enues and secondly it silenced the drivers complaining about paying Standard plate rentals even though some industry members tried to show these drivers it was finan-cially worse for them to take the Ambassador permit route.

Now the Ambassador taxi op-erators, 15 years later are crying foul and feel they are entitled to a Standard license even though they knew and signed papers acknowl-edging the parameters of the Am-bassador program, which clearly stated no second driver and the permit was not saleable. The truth of the matter is that they are not en-titled to anything for two reasons. Firstly they signed an agreement and secondly you are not entitled to a permit that should never have been issued in the first place.

If the City wanted to address the first point above, the solution is evident. Grandfather out the Ambassador program to vehicle replacement dates and that would return the industry to the appropri-ate number of licenses that is truly needed and stop our members from waiting one half hour to two hours in between taxi orders or pick-ups, thus giving them a reasonable op-portunity to earn a living while still maintaining a high level of service to our customer base.

Owner-Operator Taxis – This is not the first time this has been recommended over the years and when it was, it had to be reversed as there was almost no night cov-erage. This leads to the necessary inclusion of both fleet garages and agents as well because these members of our industry are the main suppliers of the night service as most owner operators of taxis drive days and many do not em-ploy a driver thus jobs will be lost.

Taxi License Ownership – This is the only City issued business license that is so restrictive that there is no opportunity for a person or persons to invest in our industry and expand their business opportu-nities. This is why our membership is an aging one, with no new blood entering. What other City business license says you can only own one and must have a corresponding license? What other business li-cense refuses to allow me to leave my business to a family member unless I pay a $4,647.17 fee and my family member must also hold a taxi driver’s license?

For example, if I buy a car ga-rage, can I only own one? Am I required to hold a mechanic’s li-cense? Do I pay a City fee to leave it to a family member? Does the family member that will receive my garage business require a me-chanic’s license? Does the City re-fuse to allow me to incorporate my business? The answer to all ques-tions is “NO.”

It is well overdue, that the City of Toronto remove itself from the taxi business and return to their only re-sponsibility, which is enacting fair and responsible bylaws that will ensure consumer service and pro-tection and let the free enterprise of our industry to find its own levels, which the City allows in every other business license they issue.

Note: Section 15 of the Canadi-an Charter of Rights and Freedoms states in part, “ Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protec-tion and equal “BENEFIT” of the law, without discrimination.” Obviously, the City of Toronto is refusing licensing benefits that are given to all other business licenses they issue.

•Toronto Taxi License (TTL) – This is a recent recommendation from staff that any knowledge-able person in the industry realizes is another mistake with negative ramifications. It is interesting to note that staff has made a huge ef-fort to imply to shift drivers there might be a benefit to them on this point. In reality, there is not.

This license would require own-er/operators to drive at least 35+ hours per week and if adopted, it is financially much more beneficial for the owner/operator to drive an hour or two more per day and then park the taxi. A second driver requires fleet insurance coverage; repairs triple not double due to the different driving styles; risk fac-tor doubles as car is on the road potentially 24/7 rather than 12/7 and all repairs are mostly done on the day shift, which is the owner/operator’s shift thus reducing their time in service. This shows the lack of need for a second driver, thus many fleet drivers will be out of a job.

These are five of the more im-portant items that will be dealt with in one way or the other in the upcoming staff report’s recom-mendations. Will committee adopt this report? Probably with a few alterations such as the removal of the idiotic idea of all taxis becom-ing wheelchair accessible as that would violate provincial statute that Ontario Regulation 191/11 clearly states must be proportional to the need.

Perhaps the recommendation of putting Vehicle Information Tech-

nology (VIT) terminals in all taxis will be struck down as well as that would be too close to infracting federal statutes as this informa-tion could easily be transformed to show driver and/or owner in-comes, which does violate federal statute as no one other than Fed-eral Canada is supposed to have access to your earnings.

These are just the highlights of a brutally offensive report of recom-mendations from staff to commit-tee and if adopted for the most part in their present form, it will essen-tially deregulate our industry. This will leave the door open for the City to issue more taxi licenses, which in my opinion is imminent with the excuse being the upcom-ing Pan-Am games and the Para-Pan-Am games, even though there are presently more than enough taxis in Toronto and surrounding jurisdictions to meet the need of service to the attendees and par-ticipants of both of these games considering they are both approxi-mately only two weeks in length.

In conclusion, I will reiterate what I have stated at the beginning of this reformation, the 1998 one as well and any other major in-volvement that I have seen by To-ronto city hall when dealing with its taxi industry. When all is said and done and the dust settles, the City of Toronto will make more money and our membership will make less.

If you are going to protect your investment and job in this industry, somehow we must gain a unified voice and tell the City of Toronto, these recommendations are totally unacceptable and if adopted, per-

haps it is prudent for all Toronto taxis to park and refuse service un-til the City recognizes the issues in totality and does something posi-tive to correct all the injustices.

If you believe the City’s forma-tion of the Taxi Advisory Com-mittee (TAC) or the newly self-appointed Toronto Taxi Industry Alliance (TTIA) are the answer to our problems, guess again.

TAC is City controlled and the TTIA self-appointed membership are there for the most part with their own hidden agendas, which do not lead to the overall health of the Toronto taxi industry.

I remain,Gerald H. Manley

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To the editor,

The Report from Staff pre-sented at the December 9, 2013 PVAC meeting

indicates that there should be, under the current formula for plate issuance, 33 extra plates issued.

The figures for this calculation include all taxi orders taken by bro-kers, including all accessible orders. Since the accessible taxis service

the accessible orders, and also ser-vice regular orders, the accessible taxis must be included in the mix when totaling the number of taxis.

I believe that there are currently 34 accessible taxis on the road; therefore, if we use the current is-suance formula, we have 635 regu-lar taxis, plus 34 accessibles, for a total for 669 vehicles being used as taxis in Mississauga. Therefore, there is currently an excess of one vehicle on the road, and no further issuance of taxi plates is warranted under the current formula.

Given the current sad state of driver income, the recent 40 per-cent increase in the cost of pro-pane, this year’s massive increase in insurance costs for multiple driver and accessible taxis, and uncertainties about the direction the taxi market at P.I.A. with the opening of the downtown train link and the Mississauga Rapid Bus Route, I am of the opinion that the industry should hold off issu-ing any more plates until the eco-nomic climate has had a more so-phisticated analysis. Additionally, we must also consider the impli-cations of addressing the AODA requirements. Moving ahead on this file may require looking at dif-ferent choices in restructuring the industry vehicle mix. Better not to supersaturate the marketplace in advance of decisions that must be made on this topic.

Yours truly, Mark Sexsmith, Mississauga Taxi Owner

14 January 2014

Mississauga doesn’t need more plates

‘It’s absolutely frustrating watching them regulate’• from page 10

the Framework Report, and is seek-ing disclosure from the City, under the Freedom Of Information Act.

To date, he has had no response.“They have no jurisdiction to

regulate private business arrange-ments between anybody. You look at 3,500 Standard plates selling for

$250,000. These plates are worth $1.25 billion,” he says.

“It’s absolutely frustrating watching them regulate.”

Walsh observes that the politi-cians, “have always been conde-scending to us, because they know

the cab industry doesn’t contribute a dime to (electoral) campaigns.”

Retired shift driver Steve Peev-ers concurs that “there’s clearly no political mileage”, for council-lors to get out of the cab business. Meanwhile, drivers put in mara-thon hours on the streets.

“The last time I drove, I went on a ride along College Street, and there were 100 plates, and two or three cars parked at every restau-rant. I don’t know how they do it,” he relates.

“I don’t think anyone at city hall sits down and says, ‘How can these guys make a decent living?’ Because there’s only one way, and that is reducing the number of cabs.”

While estimating business has dropped off 20 to 30 percent in the last two years, Marchese observes, “The City they’re making mon-ey constantly from this industry. They could have a law suit on their hands. “

“They’re screwing over 10,000 drivers and 5,000 owners because the industry doesn’t want to stand together,” Eisenberg chips in.

“If we go to court to find out who owns these licenses, the City would have to back off. If the City

owns the license, I have no prob-lem with that. I work for them, I want my pension.”

Souter laments that the taxi in-dustry has, “never been given the respect of a true business.” And she maintains, there’s a “very, very fine line” here between giving the drivers a decent wage and covering all of the expenses.

“I think fleet garages are in seri-ous jeopardy. I think it’s going to completely change the taxi experi-ence for Toronto and not in a good way,” she adds.

“There’s no doubt in my mind the industry will still have to go for an increase (in the meter rate). There will be increases in costs and decrease in revenues, and I see drivers leaving the industry in droves.”

Suggesting that the City has overstepped its bounds in a lot of instances, Dufort feels, “the writ-ing is on the wall” with the Re-view.

“The staff did the report and this is what they go for,” he says. “They’re trying to say, ‘We con-sulted with everybody in the indus-try.’ They’ve already made up their mind. For the last year they’ve only been trying to tweak things.”

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264 FAIRALL STREET, AJAX • 416-931-2262

Dear Tracey Cook, read this tooTo the editor,

It’s hard to imagine the 44 recommendations con-tained within the Taxicab

Review Preliminary Report being any more contentious. Which begs the question, how could MLS officials, assisted by a supposedly competent consultant, somehow have triggered such a massive out-pouring of condemnation from those who willingly provided input during the lengthy con-sultation process?

Given the final report was de-layed nearly three months to al-low for industry response; given the potential exists for legal ac-tion by the Toronto Taxi Alliance if significant changes are not made; given the level of angst on the part of so many industry members is exceedingly high, one has to presume the final re-port will reflect sober second thought. To think otherwise dem-

onstrates a breathtaking level of cynicism.

If Tracey Cooke and her staff have paid attention since the re-lease of the Preliminary Report, it would behoove her to listen closely to those whose liveli-hoods and businesses will be sig-nificantly impacted by the con-tents of the Final Report.

Serious consideration should be given to incorporating the fol-lowing provisions - listed in no particular order of importance:

(1) The proposed Toronto Taxi Licence is unnecessary, and thus needs to be scrapped in favour of retaining the Standard transfer-able taxi owner’s plate.

(2) The obligation incum-bent on a plate owner to person-ally drive for a specified period each week, likewise, should be scrapped.

(3) Where a plate is sold, the only requirement should be that the purchaser is actively driving

a cab in Toronto and has been do-ing so continuously for at least a two-year period.

(4) Plate leasing should be le-galized, with the requirement that both the vehicle and provincial plate be registered in the name of the lessee.

(5) When leasing a plate, plate owners should be obliged to deal directly with the lessee, thus eliminating designated agents.

(6) When a plate holder dies and leaves the plate to their spouse, the licence should be transferred without the require-ment the spouse obtain a taxi driver’s licence.

(7) A subcommittee should be struck, which includes seasoned members of the industry, with a mandate to determine the loca-tion for additional cab stands throughout the City.

(8) Ambassador permits should be converted to Standard plates on a phased-in basis, ex-

tending over a period not less than five years.

(9) The driver of a cab affili-ated with a brokerage should be barred from accepting calls from a competing broker, regardless.

(10) Given the sheer costs of insuring an accessible cab, and given the fact efficiencies are maximized when cabs are double-shifted, rendering the in-dustry 100 percent accessible at this time is simply not feasible. A subcommittee needs to be struck, again including members of the industry, with a mandate to de-velop a strategy for increasing the number of accessible cabs in accordance with the provincial Accessibility For Ontarians With Disabilities Act.

(11) The meter rate should not be increased at this time.

Peter Pellier

Royal Taxis Available• Day and Night shifts. • All cars come equipped with a

pager and an Interac machine. • Competitive Rates. Call Avtar at 416-566-0548

2580 St. Clair Ave West

visit taxinews.com for the correct answers!

sUDoKU & classifieDs

For $20 including HST / month you can advertise a plate for lease or plate to lease. Advertising Call: John Duffy Tel: (416) 466-2328

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CANADA PAST & PRESENT

by Jack “The Bear” Malone

15 January 2014

1. On September 15, 1927, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! had a strange tale about a French-born American actor’s return to For-tune Bay, Prince Edward Island, in a coffin. What was the story? Actor Charles Francis Cogh-lan, who had once lived in For-tune Bay, returned there in June 1901, unassisted by human effort, though he was quite dead. Cogh-lan, aged 58, had died two years before at Galveston, Texas, while touring with a company perform-ing Hamlet. Buried in a Galves-ton cemetery that was below sea

level, Coghlan’s coffin, with his body inside, was washed out to sea by flood waters after a storm. Believe It or Not!, according to Robert L. Ripley, the Gulf Stream carried Coghlan’s coffin around Florida and north-wards up the Atlantic Coast of the United States, where it washed up on the beach at Fortune Bay. Ripley told the story under the heading “Charles Coghlan Comes Home.”

2. Under the Dominion Land Act of 1872, what con-ditions did a homesteader have to meet in order to get “free” land in the West? Un-der the Dominion Land Act - commonly called the Home-stead Act - the homesteader paid a ten-dollar fee to get a quarter section – 160 acres - registered in their name. In

three years, the settler owned the land outright, if they had built a dwelling on it and cultivated part of it. If these conditions were not met, the government could take the land back.

3. What Canadian city has the greatest number of hours of sunshine per year? Estevan, Sas-katchewan, the Sunshine Capital of Canada, has over 2,500 hours of sunshine a year. That’s an average of almost seven hours of sunlight each day. Estevan also leads all of

Canada’s cities in having the clear-est skies, 2,979 cloudless hours per years.

4. What flamboyant Mayor of Montreal was imprisoned for four years during World War II for ad-vising Quebecers not to register for possible National Service? Camillien Houde - the original “Mister Montreal” - mistook the federal government’s war-time re-quirement that all Canadians over the age of 16 register for possible National Service under the Na-tional Resources Mobilization Act as the first step towards registering for the military draft - and he paid a high price for the precipitate ad-vice he handed out to Quebecers in July 1940. He spent most of World War II confined in an internment camp. That aside, Houde, once described as “a huge fat man with a bulbous nose and bulging eyes, a man of surpassing ugliness and legendary charm,” was surely one of the most flamboyant and inter-esting Canadian politicians of all-time. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth thought him by far the most interesting man they met during their 1939 visit to Canada. As, for example: Standing on the balcony of City Hall, with a large crowd of Montrealers cheering the Royals, Houde turned to the King and Queen of Great Britain and deadpanned, “You know, Your Majesties, some of these cheers are for you.” There are more than a few such stories about Camillien

Houde - possibly the only mayor of a major Canadian city ever to hold office while living in a three-

story walk-up apartment. During the 1920s, Houde, a Conservative, sat in the Quebec legislature. Af-ter that he was the Mayor of Mon-treal during the years 1928-1932, 1934-1936, 1938-1940 and 1944-1954 - which meant during much of the Great Depression and part of the war. He bankrupted The City of Montreal with too many civic works projects for which the unemployed were signed up to work, and with handouts to the

poor. The masses adored Camil-lien Houde, who had been born poor himself. When he returned

from internment on August 17, 1944, thousands of Montrealers were there to greet him. They re-elected him as mayor as soon as they were able to do so. He died poor on September 11, 1958, hav-ing failed to enrich himself in any way while in office. Today, ninety-nine percent of Canadians outside of the Province of Quebec could not tell you who Camillien Houde was. And they are poorer for that.

Seafaring dead actor made Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Drivers Wanted, Full or Part Time, Beck, Diamond or Royal, also taxi plate for lease. Call John or Peter at 416-365-2121.

Full and part time night drivers wanted for Beck Taxi in Scar-borough. Call 647-782-2515 anytime.

Markham taxi plate (only) available for monthly rent. Please call 416-573-3116 any-time.

Wanted, plates to lease, buy or sell. Call John: 416 918 9602. Email: jpstxi@yahoo.ca

Looking for Toronto Taxi plates to lease. We pay top dollar. Guaranteed to pay all traffic tickets, etc. $10 million liabil-ity insurance. Call Cory at 416-741-6904.

Pickering taxi plate for Lease or for Sale, and I need drivers. We do taxi repairs too. Call 905-686-3803.

Make $30 fast‚ be our next Cover Cab 416-368-4154.

I want to buy a Toronto taxi plate. Call Cory at 416-741-6904.

Looking for Toronto Taxi Plate to lease. We pay top dollar. Guaranteed to pay all traffic tickets. Call Sunny at 416-616-0537.

Drivers wanted night or day. Beck, Crown, or Diamond. Call Sam or Hossein @ HPM Taxi. 416-899-7054 or 416-725-1919.

Traffic tickets: speeding, care-less driving, seat belts, right or left turn call Ali @ 416-908-2189.

Day Driver wanted for Beck Taxi in Scarborough. Call 647-782-2515.

I am looking to lease a Toronto Taxi plate. Call Saleem at 647-887-1786.

I buy and sell Toronto and Pick-ering taxi plates. Call Rabi at 647-292-0946 or Jamal at 416-832-0630. We are also looking for day and night drivers.

I am looking for a Toronto taxi plate to lease. Will pay top dollar and all traffic tickets, etc. I have $10 million liability insurance. Call Lag at 647-818-7348.

I am looking for Pickering and Ajax cab drivers for Beck Taxi. I also need a used taxi car for continued use as a cab. Call Khan at 647-701-2595.

I am looking to lease a Toronto Taxi Plate. Call Sellidg at 416-779-7840.

Full and part time night drivers wanted for Beck Taxi in Scar-borough. Call 647-782-2515 anytime.

Markham taxi plate (only) available for monthly rent . Please call 416-573-3116 any-time.

METRO TORONTO TAXI PLATES: Call Michael at Green Taxi @ 647-856-1366.

Traffic ticket, referral service, A H Brown adasound@bell.net 416 363 95

I want to buy a Toronto taxi plate OR I need a taxi to drive. Call 647-822-9195.

Taxi company for sale, located approx. 1 1/2 hr north east of pearson airport. Owner retiring, fleet consists of 2 wheelchair accessible vans and 7 taxi vans, very busy with government con-tracts, please call 905-260-0661 and leave a message.

16 January 2014