
Montreal cracks down on UberX; seizes 40 cars and fines drivers - angryMontrealer
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/city-seizes-40-cars-in-crackdown-against-uberx
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jipiboily
This is sad. I live in Quebec Province, but not in Montreal. Quebec's laws
regarding taxis are old and stupid, but they exists. I hope they will change,
but in the meantime, sadly, this is their right to execute those laws.

The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if
they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws. Please, I want an app
to know when my cab will be here, I don't mind that much about saving money,
but I do want to pay easily and have a great and easy ride. That's all I want.

FYI, the taxi owners need a licenses, which I think is over $100k, and none
were issued in a long time, so price increases. So, if I had one, yes, I would
be super angry seeing Uber and stuff like that.

Still makes me very sad that this industry stagnated for so long and is not
even trying to adapt now, but getting more laws :(

Edit: fixed typo.

~~~
nostrebored
If Montreal is like most other cities, people driving taxis do not own their
own permit -- they typically rent them from a small number of people who
control a large number of permits.

~~~
jipiboily
That's indeed the norm I think in most cities.

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jellicle
Most Canadian cities are fighting Uber's refusal to follow city bylaws and
insurance requirements, Montreal is only the most recent:

[http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-
developme...](http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developments-
regarding-uber-service-in-toronto/)

Uber's current tactic is to assert that their drivers are insured in Canada,
but refuse to provide proof of that to anyone, including drivers themselves
and city regulators. This sort of "Russell's teapot" insurance claim is,
unsurprisingly, looked upon dimly by the regulators. The laws are quite clear
in Canada that personal insurance _will not_ cover Uber drivers.

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jMyles
I'm not sure exactly what this says about the culture and business norms of
Montreal, but while there for PyCon, I noticed that the number of police
seemed to have increased at least 10x from last year at the same time.

There is a great deal of political upheaval centered at UQAM, apparently
mostly related to issues of pension promises broken for public workers. This
is the ostensible reason to have so many more police and police substations,
but I have to believe that it has other cultural effects as well.

~~~
jordigh
There was a very iconic image recently making the rounds:

[http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg)

What's particularly striking about this picture, if you'll pardon the pun, is
that the cop is wearing stickers that are protesting the same austerity that
the students are protesting with their red velvet squares. Cops are not
allowed to strike (i.e. not work), so they wear stickers instead.

Howard Zinn's final chapter of his famous book comes to mind: "The Coming
Revolt of the Guards". A system that separates people into prisoners and
guards and pits them against each other, despite their common cause:

[http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html](http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html)

As to what this all says about police in Montréal, I don't know either. I've
lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant
interaction with the police. The students are _very_ leftist, though, and with
such a large student population (four major universities, two Francophone, two
Anglophone, plus several other research and education centres), the students'
attitudes just amplify themselves.

~~~
nkassis
"I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant
interaction with the police. "

This is a tangent from your original post but I've noticed that Montreal cops
seem much more relax than the ones I've dealt with in the US.

This is completely anecdotal but I feel like cops in the US are somewhat more
prone to talk and act aggressively when they start interaction with people.
I'm wondering if that's a side effect of their training. In general I've had
the opposite impression from the Montreal and Canadian cops in general. (Also
border patrol in both country are night and day in how they interact with
you).

~~~
sliverstorm
It could just be risk? I don't have numbers on the comparative risk between
Canadian cops vs. American cops, but I know that America isn't the safest
place to be a cop, and it's well-understood that a cop who does not feel at
risk is a friendlier cop.

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plg
it's worth pointing out that Quebec has no trouble at all living life as an
"outsider" with respect to Canadian and north american "norms" ... i.e. no
matter how "standard" uber becomes (or not) this will not be an argument in
favour of adopting it.

there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared
to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US)

this may be just another one

~~~
foobarqux
What are the arguments for a city to adopt Uber? Presumably there were reasons
to implement taxi regulations and medallion caps and whatever those reasons
were, if they made sense to the city 5 years ago, they probably still make
sense today.

~~~
greggyb
The reasons tend to be closer to a century old than 5 years, and similarly
tend to have been the result of preferential regulation in favor of the taxi
companies.

A good history of the jitney transport industry[0]. I'll note that the
statistics reported regarding length of service and demographics of jitney
drivers indicate that UberX is a much more apt solution to the problem of
matching riders with drivers than a "traditional" taxi service with full-time
employees.

[0][http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid=2134&uid=2488599363&uid=2488599353&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21106185861931)
\- note article is available with a free registration.

~~~
foobarqux
I didn't say the reasons were created 5 years ago, only that if there were
reasons 5 years ago they probably haven't changed. Of course you could make
the argument that there weren't valid reasons 5 years ago but that doesn't
seem compelling, I don't think a city would have de-regulated the taxi
industry and let anyone pick people up for money 5 years ago.

~~~
raquo
There's a whole gamut of options between current regulations and no
regulations. But the corrupt regulators don't want to change _anything_
because they like how the current regulations bring in $800K per year per
medallion to license holders who are also their friends, partners and/or
campaign donors (actual Vancouver numbers).

What kind of safety or convenience or other concerns _require_ profits in
excess of $800K per taxi cab per year? What's wrong with market pricing? Why
should short rides subsidize long rides? Why can't one company offer no-frills
service (at no-frills prices), and the other one premium service? Why can't
taxis have optional ride pooling?

Uber, Lyft & co have already proved that they can work great alongside
existing cabs. There is no reason why they wouldn't work if the regulations
are updated from 1930 to 2015 and from protecting incumbents' profits to
protecting users' interests. But the cities are unwilling to do that because
they like their profitable taxi cartels.

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olalonde
Not very surprising given that Quebec has the highest unionisation rate (~40%)
among all Canadian provinces and U.S. states.

~~~
jipiboily
How is that related again? :)

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kelvin0
yes, olalonde, enlighten us? Most taxi drivers are non-unionized people
'renting' a taxi permit/car from a permit holder

~~~
olalonde
A quick Google search shows up this union: "Regroupement professionnel des
chauffeurs de taxi métallos (FTQ)".

Regardless, my point was that Quebec is very pro-union and the public opinion
generally tends to side with workers (taxi drivers in this case) as opposed to
consumers.

In fact, multiple large unions in Quebec have shown their support for taxi
drivers in their fight against Uber ([http://www.usw.ca/districts-
fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158](http://www.usw.ca/districts-fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158)
sorry, French).

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logicallee
And people joke when startups are considered "disruptive." This is disruption
in action. Uber is changing the face of society. (When it comes to cabs.)

And society is resisting. Any other company, in any other market, would just
give up. But a San Francisco tech company is different: it can KNOW that
progress is right, and push, push, push it through throughout society.

This is a story that repeats again and again. Idealistic disruptive startups
actually change the face of society, while everyone else poo-poos and wrings
their hands, until they don't.

~~~
bayesianhorse
And disrupting moral standards in business, according to some. (I'm not
judging Uber or those who say that, including one of their investors)

~~~
logicallee
( _Actually that is a separate matter and I agree with you completely. They
need to return to their roots and not do any of that spoiled only-child stuff
(no offense to people who are an only child, I just can 't think of a better
example, and of course if someone is an only child they can still learn to
cooperate-etc.)

If you want, Uber, you can be a child who doesn't share their toys: just
create something new again! You can't retain a monopoly otherwise. Wouldn't
you rather keep growing, like Google after search, than retain a hundred
percent of some single tiny specific market, like Windows as a monopoly? Just
take a look at the two respective stock charts (goog and msft, max timeframe).

I actually take this subject totally seriously. However it's orthogonal to
what we were discussing. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about,
it doesn't matter here._)

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kyriee
This is NOT a Montreal-only phenomenon: UberX cars have also been sized in
Toronto and Vancouver. Edmonton is calling to ban UberX and the service has
been shuttered in Calgary...

Toronto: [http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-
drivers-f...](http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-face-
charges/)

Ontario: [http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-
toronto/1345960/queens-...](http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-
toronto/1345960/queens-park-bill-53-could-put-the-brakes-on-uber-in-ontario/)

BC: [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-
co...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-companies-
file-lawsuit-to-block-uber-from-expanding-into-vancouver/article21451479/)

Edmonton: [http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-
asso...](http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-association-
calls-for-seizure-of-uber-vehicles/)

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walterbell
Has any taxi service, in any city, rolled out a self-dispatching app for end-
users?

~~~
kjjw
Yes there are apps that work with existing taxi services.

[https://www.hailoapp.com/](https://www.hailoapp.com/)

~~~
angryMontrealer
Hailo was quite popular in Montreal for a while until Uber launched and drove
them out of business. As far as i recall they shut down all of their North
American operations to focus on EU. Wonder how that's going. I quite liked
them, but I prefer UberX any day

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mrbig4545
In Manchester, UK (I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the country),
uber is a normal registered taxi service, it's not normal people using the app
to give people rides. It works really well

~~~
igrekel
UberX is different, with UberX "anyone" can be a taxi driver.

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stormqloud
Who cares if Uber is illegal.

The unions, the politicians, the construction companies. These groups steal
from the population for decades (Charbinneau commission).

Who cares what the govt thinks in Quebec. The Quebec govt is out to steal and
cheat for their own benefit, not the benefit of the population of Quebec.

Speaking English in Quebec is illegal in certain situation.

Ignore laws in Quebec. Choose what laws you follow, just like the unions,
politicians etc.

If you get caught just say sorry. Quebec society loves apologies and forgives
immediately so you can get back to stealing and scamming people.

Not a single person from 40 years of corruption we say at Charbonneu will even
get a fine.

Uber, keep going! Fuck Quebec laws. It doesn;t matter.

