Regulating the Canadian taxi and ride sharing industry: Recommendations and highlights

Backgrounder

November 26, 2015

Guiding principles for regulating the taxi and ride sharing industry:

• Provincial and municipal governments should limit regulations to those required to achieve legitimate policy goals, such as protecting passenger safety.
• Care should be taken to ensure that regulations do not restrict competition and innovation any more than is necessary to achieve legitimate policy goals.
• Regulations should be applied equally to taxis and ride‑sharing services to ensure that one does not gain a competitive advantage over the other.
• Where possible, restrictions on traditional taxis should be relaxed, rather than imposing additional regulations on ride‑sharing services.

Key Competition Bureau recommendations:

• Ease price controls, such as regulated taxi fares, to allow fares to be adjusted during periods of varying demand, such as weekends, evenings and bad weather.
• Eliminate restrictions on the number of taxi plates issued and move to a system where additional qualified drivers may operate as vehicles‑for‑hire.
• Allow all drivers to respond to street hails, regardless of whether they work for a taxi company or ride‑sharing service, unless there is a compelling policy reason not to do so.
• Provide incentives to drivers to operate accessible vehicles in areas where consumers are under‑served.