A couple of weeks ago, along a brief journey from Adelaide Street West towards Bathurst Station, an UberX driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, drifts aimlessly among the crosshatching gridlock of Toronto. Down the bowing streets, he waits for a notification, in response, to a random pedestrian’s use of the Uber app. Eventually, he is notified by the radio frequency, and heads towards his new clients. Pulling up to the sidewalk, he spots two young adults, suspicious, as they shuffle into the back of the sedan with media equipment. Their illusive grins, which play on dimwitted excitement, well-mannered, yet naively stating that “this is our first Uber ride, and what Uber is like?” give away the disguise. They’re journalism students, he later uncovers. The students’ probing, surprising, led to the UberX driver breaking his silence, confessing his exodus from the Toronto taxi business, and as the alleged “80 per cent,” his conversion to Uber. When his Mazda6 gradually came to a halt by the curb of the subway station, he continued his story.

When he spoke, it was laden with hidden anger.  Passive-aggression, like a morsel of popcorn seeds tucked away under his tongue, and ready to pop; however, his resentment towards the many brokerages within Toronto — Beck, Co-op Cabs, Royal, et cetera — was concealed by his kind gesture to help two eager journalists find the truth: whether Uber is the real-deal, or not, and if, the City of Toronto’s regulation over the taxicab industry is fair?

“You’ve come to the right person,” he said.

It was like the Nixon scandal, where information was exchanged within a concealed environment, however, instead of an empty parking lot setting, it occurred in a car’s bellying interior out in the open. Luckily, his deep throat full of archived information flowed out like the burgeoning reflex of a talkative parrot.

According to the UberX driver, the legitimacy of the brokerage’s fare system is non-beneficial for both the driver, and the clients. He describes, through a formula of subtraction, how it is unjust. “The driver collects 20 dollars out of you, [and] all he gets is seven dollars out of that 20 max. Thirteen dollars out of 20 is gone to whom? The third party takes the money,” he said.

His deduction lends itself to the lucrative scheme of one of Toronto’s top brokerages, Beck. The UberX driver states that Beck has a supply of plates it’s willing to provide new drivers, however they require the driver to possess their own vehicle. Beck obtains these plates by negotiating with retired drivers, giving whoever owns one an estimated 1600 dollars, or 1700 dollars a month. The result is a plate that cost 2200 dollars to rent monthly, and with Beck making a profit of either 400 dollars, or 500 dollars apiece. Even with coupons incentives, or the use of Visa, the driver is charged 10% for their use by clients. Adding to the growing deficit, he mentions the fee for operating the Beck radio dispatch service, too.

“I pay for everything I do; I’m their source of the income, yet I’m the one getting the least amount of money? … [If] you add up all these expenses, how much do these drivers really make?” 

Turning his focus to the other side of the spectrum, towards Uber he says, “If I’m charging you cheaper, they’re not squeezing money out of me. What they’re doing is eliminating the third party.”

Interestingly, he points out Uber’s convenient model of eliminating the middleman. And agreeably, clients see the benefit of a cheap charge rate of 2.75 dollars with UberX  — which increases by 0.30 cents per minute and 0.90 cents per kilometer — over taxi’s normal tariff of 4.25 dollars; however, he stems away from the other services, like UberTAXI, UberBLACK, and UberSUV, which charge steeper prices.

As his face is slightly tilted to the rear end of the car, he becomes transfixed, through his peripheral, on the two students sitting attentively. Calm in his approach, he suddenly hints at the alleged corruption of City Hall.

“[It costs, approximately] 350-thousand dollars for a Standard Taxicab License” he said, then beaconing a rhetorical question. “Do you know how much they cost originally? 15-thousand dollars.”

He questioned how the plates could be transferred among a free market when it’s the property of the City of Toronto.  Having experienced some discrepancies within the taxi industry, he gave an example: false declarations to City Hall.

“When you go [to City Hall], you don’t declare you paid 350-thousand,” he said. “They don’t want you, too.” He also adds, “They know that’s not the cost acceptable.”

According to an article in the Metro, a man named Yusuf Farooqi, owner-driver, explained to them, “he bought his plate for 55-thousand dollars more than the price that was reported to the city.” When asked why, he said, “it’s a common occurrence in the Toronto taxi industry.” 

Feeling nostalgic, he turned his gaze inward, to a memory about a former premier. He revelled in the thought of Mike Harris, the 22^nd Premier of Ontario, and his legacy. “There was one politician who wanted to make a radical change,” he said, drifting off into a lucid trance. He was a man, referring to Harris, who had ideas that weren’t singular.  Paraphrasing Harris, he said, “you got to change this, it’s way too old.”

The UberX driver was referring to Harris’ Common Sense Revolution, a program created to uproot unnecessary government spending, however Harris’ plans to reform the taxi industry, he mentions, lost traction the second he left office. His eyes churned, then reseeded into their sockets, slightly open to the sunlight that beamed through the windshield. He was upset, now turning his thoughts to the problem. 

Within this conflict, he describes Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, as a major player. Minnan-Wong, formally the Chair of the Taxi Reform Committee, was important in the drafting of documents, simply to reform standards within Toronto’s taxicab industry.  The UberX driver says Minnan-Wong took his delegation to both Europe and New York to study how the taxi business works; once the delegation returned, they came with the idea of an Ambassador taxicab license.

“Now they have two,” he said. “One is good, which could be sold on the market, and the other one can’t be transferred to anybody.”

Horrific as it seems, the UberX driver states that the Ambassador taxicab license is an owner-operated plate, which, if you get sick, or are unable to work, the city takes it back. It cannot be transferred or sold to anybody, and cannot be road more than 12 hours.   

“Providing a brand new car every six years, that cost 40-thousand dollars and they don’t compensate you (sic); you have to provide your own insurance, [and] all the expenses come to you,” he decried. “This is the license.”   

Full-time Toronto drivers who drove for ten years were able to put their names on the Driver’s List, hoping to get the original plate — the Standard taxicab license, which is transferable, and can be sold — but it was changed to a permit, to protect the old plates. In a nutshell, they were “shafted from the list,” he said.

Even with the reform, voted on by City Council, to have all licenses converted to the now equal Toronto Taxi Licenses (TLL), is not, as he describes, the competition that “is well accepted by the citizens,” but Uber, a much reliable source of transportation.

With brokerages that require safety checks, Uber enforces the same requirements, too.  Asking that drivers have a legal license, insurance, evidence of vehicle’s safeness, provide ownership of the vehicle. The only difference is that Uber pays for it, he says.

With people of influence in City Hall, he questions their ethics. “They’re running for change, so why aren’t they open to change?” he ponders. City Councillors are proposing laws with insidious intent, brokerages are stirring up City Hall politics, yet the UberX driver pauses briefly, then says with confidence, “no, [Uber] is here to stay.” Coincidentally, Toronto’s Mayor-elect, John Tory, said the same thing, too.

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