Ride-sharing recommendation slated for 2019

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

A recommendation surrounding how the City of Oshawa will move forward with regulating ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft, is set to become one of the first big-ticket items to be debated by Oshawa’s new council in 2019.

According to Jerry Conlin, the city’s director of law enforcement and licensing services, the large portion of research and consultation has been concluded for the future report on what to do with ride-sharing apps, but because of the size of the report and the decision involved, it will not come before the current council when the short session resumes in September ahead of the October municipal election.

“We will probably be coming back after the new council is brought on, just because it is such a big item and going to involve some large meetings and whatnot,” he says. “I thought it would probably be more respectful of the community and the council.”

In terms of the consultation, the city held several open houses and an online survey to gather information from the public and stakeholders, a process that was ongoing throughout the summer of 2017. In fact, the city saw one of the largest responses to an issue in terms of participation that they’ve ever seen.

In total, nearly 100 people came out to one of a series of five in-person consultation sessions, many of them from the general public and members of the industry. As well, the city saw almost 500 responses to an online survey on the topic.

“It was a pretty good response to that. The feedback that we had from the taxi industry, the community in general, we did have a little bit of feedback form the ride-sharing industry, not as heavy, but we did have feedback,” Conlin says, noting that the ride-sharing companies are generally aware of the regulations coming forward, as similar process are either complete or underway in other municipalities.

“I think the ride-sharing companies are familiar what with municipalities and what their needs are and what their concerns are. I believe that they are expecting that their will be some form of regulation it’s just what it looks like at the end of the day,” he says.

When the item eventually does come before council, Conlin says that staff will be bringing forward a recommendation on how to proceed, but he wouldn’t share the details of what that recommendation might be.

In the meantime, Conlin says bylaw officers continue to enforce the city’s existing taxi-cab bylaw, which makes it illegal for ride-sharing companies to operate in the city. The fines range in terms of the offense and the severity, but the past has shown these fines will stand up in court.

A recent decision released by the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLii), details the appeal of an Oshawa Uber driver who attempted to argue their way out of a ticket.

In that situation, a bylaw officer simply requested a ride on the Uber app, and when the drive showed up, the trip was cancelled and he was handed a ticket instead.

The driver attempted to argue that because no ride had taken plan there was no violation of the bylaw. However, the appeal was eventually dismissed.

“That is still going on, but it is a project-based rather than regular enforcement,” Conlin says of his team’s efforts. “We’re looking at trying to make this a more balanced environment to provide services and that’s what we want to bring forward for council’s consideration.”