bcbusinEss.ca august 2015 BCBusiness 33
parties in Vancouver, Surrey and Burn-
aby, as well as B.C.'s governing Liberals.
"I think the taxi industry in the metro
area generally has acquired a political
heft that is not healthy," says Garossino,
who got out of the business in 2000. "We
need more taxis, everybody knows it,
but it's in the interest of the taxi-licence
holders to suppress supply." But that has
led to a situation where people are frus-
trated with the city's existing taxi ser-
vices. In a December 2014 poll done by
Insights West for a putative ride-hailing
service called Ripe Rides, almost 70 per
cent of Metro Vancouver residents said
that cabs in the Lower Mainland were
unreliable; another 54 per cent said they
were unsafe.
Another consideration for politi-
cians: it's no fun being the negative
Nelly standing in the way of millennials
enamoured with this new model. That's
true for Airbnb, Uber and all the other
new sharing-economy businesses. "I
think governments are totally caught
off-guard," says one political adviser
who has worked at both the provincial
and municipal level. "Even though a
city or province knows they're break-
ing the rules, they don't want to enforce
anything because they don't want to be
seen to be behind the times." Vancouver
(backed by the province), Montreal and
Toronto are holding out for now, per-
haps a legacy of the Canadian culture of
conservative government and low toler-
ance for American-style revolutions, but
elsewhere, mayors and councils are giv-
ing way. In Vancouver, councillor Geo"
Meggs says that, as much as everyone
acknowledges the region needs better
taxi service, "I don't think we should
just tell the taxi industry, 'Here comes
the disruption.'" But at the same time,
he acknowledges, "there's a genera-
tional gap in this. I'm constantly receiv-
ing criticism from people under 35 for
not just allowing this in wholesale." The
League of American Cities report also
underscored the fact that cities don't
want to be perceived as stiœing innova-
tion, which has inœuenced their deci-
sions about the Ubers and Airbnbs. The
unhip factor. Enough to make anyone in
public life pause.
People who o"er these services gen-
erally love the new model, particularly
because of the feeling of control they
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