On March 15 an adviser to Tory told Grant and another senior staffer that he had “been contacted by Uber many times” asking when the programs would be approved. Uber also pressured the mayor and council on the issue. Grant pointed the finger at the providers.“We are pushing them, but the content has not met our expert panels requirements,” he replied. The situation was “increasingly and frankly (incredibly) problematic,” she wrote.
Develop a training program for taxicab drivers drivers#
In a March 14 email to Grant, a lobbyist working for the company estimated that almost 10,000 drivers had been “in abeyance” since before Christmas. Uber had warned that a pause on licensing would lead to longer wait times and higher costs for customers, and as the training delays dragged on, the company grew frustrated. The figures indicated the “turnover rate of licensees is quite high,” Grant wrote, attributing the trend to drivers signing up to work only periodically. Only a quarter of licensees from 2019 were still driving two years later. Grant also noted that while Toronto had licensed 16,500 ride-hailing drivers in the five months before the freeze, only 39 per cent of app workers who obtained a municipal licence in 2020 still had one in 2021. 22 email to the mayor’s office, Carleton Grant, the city’s executive director of licensing and standards, reported that only about 60 per cent of licensed ride-hailing drivers in Toronto signed on to work during the last month before the pandemic struck, and the majority of them were “driving sporadically.” But even before that drop, there appeared to be significant churn in the industry. Meanwhile, according to a November 2021 city report, the number of ride-hailing drivers had declined by about 50 per cent since the start of the pandemic, from about 90,000 to 47,000. Municipal staff expected to start certifying third-party providers in January, but the emails show that by March none of the 12 companies that had submitted proposals had met city standards. That same month council paused the issuance of licences for new drivers until the training was in place. The launch of the program was deferred at the onset of COVID-19, but last November the city issued a new call for providers to deliver the courses, which would focus on themes like transporting passengers safely, serving riders with accessibility needs, and anti-harassment training. It says its drivers earn decent wages and the company supports the city’s regulatory regime.Ĭity council mandated training for all taxi and ride-hailing drivers in 2019 following the death of a 28-year-old Uber passenger.
The group says that since Uber arrived in Toronto, that business model has led the company to resist any regulations that would hinder its ability to sign up workers fast.
RideFairTO, a group that advocates for stricter regulation of Uber and other ride-hailing services, says the company’s impatience over the delays shows how its business model relies on a steady stream of low-paid drivers who quickly cycle out of the industry. They show the company lobbied senior city staff and the mayor’s office to end the training approval delays.
Internal City of Toronto emails, obtained by an advocacy group through a freedom of information request and shared with the Star, capture Uber’s concern over not being able to sign up new workers during the licensing freeze. The result was a months-long shutdown of new workers joining the ride-hailing industry, which had been losing drivers by the thousands. In late 2021, council stopped issuing new licences for taxis and companies like Uber and Lyft until the training was in place, but the launch of the program was delayed as the city struggled for months to attract qualified course providers. Newly disclosed emails are shedding light on Uber’s frustration over Toronto’s troubled rollout of a mandatory training program for taxi and ride-hailing drivers earlier this year.
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