Ride sharing finally comes to BC, but with stifling regulations
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
129.35828
Summary
Luis Sandoval is the Campaign Director for Stranded BC and they nearly single-handedly got Uber and Lyft into the marketplace in British Columbia. I know it s shocking that British Columbia did not have Uber or Lyft until literally a couple weeks ago.
Transcript
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Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of
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He's the campaign director for Stranded BC and they nearly single-handedly got Uber and
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I know, it's shocking that British Columbia did not have Uber or Lyft until literally a
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Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps are finally available in Vancouver which is
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a victory for free markets and the consumer but only sort of.
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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Did you know that Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps have only just come to Vancouver?
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Urbane hipster Vancouver is just getting Uber now.
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While other parts of North America have had access to Uber and Lyft for upwards of 11 years,
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only now is ride-sharing becoming a thing in Vancouver after a years-long battle to bring
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And when I say years-long battle, I'm not even remotely kidding.
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The city and the government has done everything they can to keep Uber out.
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The Liberals and the NDP both promised to bring ride-sharing to British Columbia in 2017
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and three years later, finally, just finally now, some regions are getting access.
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But the roadblocks thrown up by politicians to protect the taxi lobby have been absolutely
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For example, when Uber first tried to enter the Vancouver market, the Passenger Transportation
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Board enforced the rule that required the company to charge at least $75 per ride, just
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And now that Uber and Lyft have been operating for a few weeks in Metro Vancouver, drivers are
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being kept out of the market because of onerous licensing requirements that almost nowhere else
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has that requires them to have a Class 4 license, the same one ambulance drivers have.
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But we can explain this protectionism on behalf of the taxi lobby by the NDP government quite
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There's a BC NDP MLA on the Legislative Ride-Hailing Committee who has a dad with a taxi
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Yet this person never stepped down from the committee making the rules to keep Uber and Lyft out.
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And before that, a so-called ride-sharing company called Cater fulfilled the NDP promises to
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bring ride-sharing to the Lower Mainland, except Cater was just taxis using a ride-hailing
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app with 20% of the profits from the company going directly back to the taxi industry.
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And Cater eventually failed because people don't want taxi monopolies anymore.
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Now, I don't often take Ubers, I don't often take taxis, but I do care about free markets
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and competition and the government not picking favourites.
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And that's why I think you can judge the corruption of a city or a government by how they treat
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And that's why today I have someone on the show who has been trying to bring competition
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to the marketplace for British Columbia consumers for years, and who is working to remove these
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ridiculous regulations that are keeping Uber drivers out of the British Columbia market.
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So joining me now from his home in British Columbia is Luis Sandoval of Stranded, BC.
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I know it's shocking probably to a lot of you at home that British Columbia did not have
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And Luis and his group, Stranded, BC, played a very big role in holding the politicians to
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account for their promises to bring ride-sharing apps to British Columbia.
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Why don't you give us a little background about who you are, what is Stranded, BC, and how
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My name is Luis Sandoval, and I'm the campaign manager of Stranded, BC.
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Organization resulted as an outcome of frustration.
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As you mentioned previously, we were waiting for 11 years to enjoy this kind of services.
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And our main purpose is to create and educate about the ongoing ride-hailing issues that are
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Finally, we have Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing companies operating in the province.
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But now, we are oriented to get rid of this unnecessary commercial Class 4 license, which
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denies the opportunity for other people to drive for these companies, and at the same
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time, limits the availability of these services in other parts of British Columbia.
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Now, I'm not someone who frequently takes cabs or public transportation.
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I live on a farm, so I need to have my car with me just to get to town, to the places
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But what are some of the problems that have been created, I guess, in British Columbia by
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not having these services that we seem to take for granted in the rest of the country?
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We take for granted that we'll be able to access Uber or Lyft when we need them, wherever
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But that hasn't always been the case in British Columbia.
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And what are some of the problems created by not having access to this?
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First of all, there are a couple of problems that we need to consider.
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75% of the people who live in Metro Vancouver, they live in the suburbs.
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With this Class 4 commercial license, it takes a long time to get it.
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It could be from two months till four, five, or even six months where you need to present
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You need to pay a fee of $500 till $2,000 Canadian dollars where basically in the moment
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we don't have the enough supply of drivers, which limits the availability of these services.
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I mean, Metro Vancouver is not only the downtown area.
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Metro Vancouver, it includes Barnaby, it includes Surrey, Richmond, Abbotsford, or other cities
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Now, you've mentioned the Class 4 licensing for Uber and Lyft drivers.
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I don't know exactly what that means in British Columbia, but I'm sure it's similar to what
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a Class 4 license means in Alberta, and that's more along the lines of ambulance drivers and
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larger commercial vehicle drivers in the rest of the country.
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Do they have, and I guess in North America, is there this bizarre requirement that you have
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in British Columbia to have Uber and Lyft drivers have an ambulance license, or does everybody
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In Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, they allow drivers to drive with the Class 5,
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In most of the United States jurisdictions, it's also the same.
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I will tell you something which is quite interesting because before Uber and Lyft started operating
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in Metro Vancouver in March 2019, there was a ride-held in committee, which was conformed
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by members of the NDP, the Liberals, and the Greens.
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These people, they, well, these policymakers, they made some suggestions to the Transportation
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Minister and the Passenger Transportation Board to allow people to drive with a Class 5 license.
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They were suggesting that they could drive with a Class 5 license, and they should take a special
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But as you previously mentioned, this Class 4, you need to read a 280-pages manual, which
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contains information about how to drive ambulances, how to drive trucks, which is basically unnecessary.
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Also, another thing that is important to consider is that, according to the BC Chamber of Commerce,
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91% of Lyft drivers, they are driving part-time, which means that most of the people who drive
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for these companies is because they are basically trying to make an extra income and not have it as a full-time job.
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On the outside, looking into Vancouver, it is obscenely expensive to live there.
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I don't know how people pay for a house and food, let alone afford a car in British Columbia.
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So by having this peculiar Class 4 requirement, it's keeping a lot of people who could use the part-time work
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out of the marketplace because they don't need a Class 4, they don't have a Class 4,
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and why would they spend the extra money to pursue a Class 4?
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It's keeping drivers out of the market, and by doing that, it's stopping jobs from being created,
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but it's also keeping availability away from the people who actually need it
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because generally Uber and Lyft, they're much cheaper than the regular old archaic taxi system.
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So it's costing people jobs and costing commuters money and convenience.
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They added this thing in that nobody else really has.
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Is it to protect the taxi union while keeping their campaign promises to bring Uber and Lyft?
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Well, the excuse that they say at the beginning, it was that this regulation was made because of people's safety.
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But I believe that it's not people's safety, it's taxi lobby's safety.
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In 2016 and 2017, some statistics were released where it was demonstrated
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that the difference of crash rates between Class 4 and Class 5 drivers, license holders,
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This made me think that this is basically an unnecessary restriction,
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Let's now take a look at some of the problems with the Transportation Board
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that is deciding these things for, I guess, private entrepreneurs,
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because that's really what an Uber and Lyft driver is.
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It doesn't sound like any of them have any experience or very much experience being an entrepreneur.
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Most of them are just government cronies enjoying patronage appointments.
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I mean, Catherine Reed, the chair of the Passenger Transportation Board,
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she has a long history of serving in government,
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serving as the deputy minister in positions in the B.C. government.
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She was the chief economist for the Cayman Islands government
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as well as Yukon's public service commissioner.
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I don't know what any of that has to do with permitting Uber and Lyft drivers
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to drive people safely the way they are in the rest of the country.
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You were mentioning about the chair of the board, Catherine Reed.
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She was nominated by the NDP after John Horgan got elected.
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The question is, how can we prove that they are independent at all from the government
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her background is not related with this kind of decisions.
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Yeah, there's another member on the board named William Bell,
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and he looks like he was put there just to protect the taxi lobby.
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but his current one-year term expires June 30th, 2020,
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so he's been renewed by the NDP a bunch of times.
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that in 2012 stifled Uber's low-key entry into the Vancouver market
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when they make them charge a limousine-like rides.
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they're not thinking about other people's needs,
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after 11 years of Uber and Lyft being available
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you finally have Uber and Lyft in British Columbia.
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to get rid of that Class 4 licensing restriction?