Rebel News Podcast - February 20, 2020


Ride sharing finally comes to BC, but with stifling regulations


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

129.35828

Word count

2,769

Sentence count

146

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of
00:00:15.820 my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gunn Show.
00:00:19.300 Tonight my guest is Luis Sandoval.
00:00:22.760 He's the campaign director for Stranded BC and they nearly single-handedly got Uber and
00:00:32.820 Lyft into the marketplace in British Columbia.
00:00:35.560 I know, it's shocking that British Columbia did not have Uber or Lyft until literally a
00:00:42.860 couple weeks ago.
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00:01:43.000 Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps are finally available in Vancouver which is
00:01:48.680 a victory for free markets and the consumer but only sort of.
00:01:54.380 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:02:13.000 Did you know that Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps have only just come to Vancouver?
00:02:21.760 Urbane hipster Vancouver is just getting Uber now.
00:02:25.420 I know it's shocking to me too.
00:02:28.060 While other parts of North America have had access to Uber and Lyft for upwards of 11 years,
00:02:33.760 only now is ride-sharing becoming a thing in Vancouver after a years-long battle to bring
00:02:39.340 the services to the Lower Mainland.
00:02:41.400 And when I say years-long battle, I'm not even remotely kidding.
00:02:46.040 The city and the government has done everything they can to keep Uber out.
00:02:50.020 The Liberals and the NDP both promised to bring ride-sharing to British Columbia in 2017
00:02:54.660 and three years later, finally, just finally now, some regions are getting access.
00:02:59.880 But the roadblocks thrown up by politicians to protect the taxi lobby have been absolutely
00:03:06.160 transparent and outrageous. 1.00
00:03:07.800 For example, when Uber first tried to enter the Vancouver market, the Passenger Transportation
00:03:14.040 Board enforced the rule that required the company to charge at least $75 per ride, just
00:03:19.700 like a limousine.
00:03:21.020 And now that Uber and Lyft have been operating for a few weeks in Metro Vancouver, drivers are
00:03:26.880 being kept out of the market because of onerous licensing requirements that almost nowhere else
00:03:32.180 has that requires them to have a Class 4 license, the same one ambulance drivers have.
00:03:39.020 But we can explain this protectionism on behalf of the taxi lobby by the NDP government quite
00:03:44.520 easily.
00:03:45.420 There's a BC NDP MLA on the Legislative Ride-Hailing Committee who has a dad with a taxi
00:03:52.380 license.
00:03:53.340 Yet this person never stepped down from the committee making the rules to keep Uber and Lyft out.
00:03:57.800 It's unbelievable, but it's perfectly NDP.
00:03:59.940 And before that, a so-called ride-sharing company called Cater fulfilled the NDP promises to
00:04:06.060 bring ride-sharing to the Lower Mainland, except Cater was just taxis using a ride-hailing
00:04:11.640 app with 20% of the profits from the company going directly back to the taxi industry.
00:04:18.000 What a scam.
00:04:19.600 And Cater eventually failed because people don't want taxi monopolies anymore.
00:04:24.500 They want competition and fairness.
00:04:26.640 Now, I don't often take Ubers, I don't often take taxis, but I do care about free markets
00:04:32.500 and competition and the government not picking favourites.
00:04:35.860 And that's why I think you can judge the corruption of a city or a government by how they treat
00:04:40.960 Uber or Lyft.
00:04:42.840 And that's why today I have someone on the show who has been trying to bring competition
00:04:46.980 to the marketplace for British Columbia consumers for years, and who is working to remove these
00:04:53.280 ridiculous regulations that are keeping Uber drivers out of the British Columbia market.
00:04:58.240 So joining me now from his home in British Columbia is Luis Sandoval of Stranded, BC.
00:05:11.280 So joining me now is Luis Sandoval.
00:05:14.060 He is the campaign director of Stranded, BC.
00:05:17.660 I know it's shocking probably to a lot of you at home that British Columbia did not have
00:05:25.540 Uber or Lyft until just very recently.
00:05:30.100 And Luis and his group, Stranded, BC, played a very big role in holding the politicians to
00:05:37.060 account for their promises to bring ride-sharing apps to British Columbia.
00:05:42.660 Luis, thanks for joining me.
00:05:44.300 Why don't you give us a little background about who you are, what is Stranded, BC, and how
00:05:50.840 you came to be involved in all of this?
00:05:54.480 Hi, everybody.
00:05:55.720 My name is Luis Sandoval, and I'm the campaign manager of Stranded, BC.
00:06:01.200 Organization resulted as an outcome of frustration.
00:06:05.980 As you mentioned previously, we were waiting for 11 years to enjoy this kind of services.
00:06:11.000 Finally, we have them, mainly in Vancouver.
00:06:15.880 And our main purpose is to create and educate about the ongoing ride-hailing issues that are
00:06:24.460 going in the province.
00:06:27.000 Thanks, God.
00:06:27.980 Finally, we have Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing companies operating in the province.
00:06:33.660 But now, we are oriented to get rid of this unnecessary commercial Class 4 license, which
00:06:42.380 denies the opportunity for other people to drive for these companies, and at the same
00:06:46.960 time, limits the availability of these services in other parts of British Columbia.
00:06:51.880 Now, I'm not someone who frequently takes cabs or public transportation.
00:06:58.820 I live on a farm, so I need to have my car with me just to get to town, to the places
00:07:03.940 where you might take a cab.
00:07:06.320 But what are some of the problems that have been created, I guess, in British Columbia by
00:07:12.980 not having these services that we seem to take for granted in the rest of the country?
00:07:17.600 We take for granted that we'll be able to access Uber or Lyft when we need them, wherever
00:07:23.640 we are.
00:07:24.820 But that hasn't always been the case in British Columbia.
00:07:27.380 And what are some of the problems created by not having access to this?
00:07:31.960 First of all, there are a couple of problems that we need to consider.
00:07:41.960 75% of the people who live in Metro Vancouver, they live in the suburbs.
00:07:49.720 With this Class 4 commercial license, it takes a long time to get it.
00:07:57.040 It could be from two months till four, five, or even six months where you need to present
00:08:05.240 a knowledge test.
00:08:06.640 You need to do a driver's test.
00:08:09.380 You need to pay a fee of $500 till $2,000 Canadian dollars where basically in the moment
00:08:22.240 we don't have the enough supply of drivers, which limits the availability of these services.
00:08:30.180 I mean, Metro Vancouver is not only the downtown area.
00:08:34.720 Metro Vancouver, it includes Barnaby, it includes Surrey, Richmond, Abbotsford, or other cities
00:08:42.680 which are part of Metro Vancouver.
00:08:45.780 Now, you've mentioned the Class 4 licensing for Uber and Lyft drivers.
00:08:55.480 I don't know exactly what that means in British Columbia, but I'm sure it's similar to what
00:09:01.260 a Class 4 license means in Alberta, and that's more along the lines of ambulance drivers and
00:09:08.800 larger commercial vehicle drivers in the rest of the country.
00:09:16.140 Do they have, and I guess in North America, is there this bizarre requirement that you have
00:09:21.780 in British Columbia to have Uber and Lyft drivers have an ambulance license, or does everybody
00:09:30.000 else just have a Class 5?
00:09:32.780 In Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, they allow drivers to drive with the Class 5,
00:09:40.440 which is their regular one.
00:09:41.900 In most of the United States jurisdictions, it's also the same.
00:09:47.720 I will tell you something which is quite interesting because before Uber and Lyft started operating
00:09:55.240 in Metro Vancouver in March 2019, there was a ride-held in committee, which was conformed
00:10:03.140 by members of the NDP, the Liberals, and the Greens.
00:10:08.200 These people, they, well, these policymakers, they made some suggestions to the Transportation
00:10:16.240 Minister and the Passenger Transportation Board to allow people to drive with a Class 5 license.
00:10:23.300 They were suggesting that they could drive with a Class 5 license, and they should take a special
00:10:31.320 course designed for ride-hailing drivers.
00:10:34.840 But as you previously mentioned, this Class 4, you need to read a 280-pages manual, which
00:10:45.100 contains information about how to drive ambulances, how to drive trucks, which is basically unnecessary.
00:10:53.300 Also, another thing that is important to consider is that, according to the BC Chamber of Commerce,
00:11:02.740 91% of Lyft drivers, they are driving part-time, which means that most of the people who drive
00:11:14.600 for these companies is because they are basically trying to make an extra income and not have it as a full-time job.
00:11:24.440 Yeah, that's a great point.
00:11:27.780 On the outside, looking into Vancouver, it is obscenely expensive to live there.
00:11:34.180 I don't know how people pay for a house and food, let alone afford a car in British Columbia.
00:11:41.040 So by having this peculiar Class 4 requirement, it's keeping a lot of people who could use the part-time work
00:11:51.400 out of the marketplace because they don't need a Class 4, they don't have a Class 4,
00:11:57.080 and why would they spend the extra money to pursue a Class 4?
00:12:02.860 So this requirement is doing two things.
00:12:06.960 It's keeping drivers out of the market, and by doing that, it's stopping jobs from being created,
00:12:14.480 but it's also keeping availability away from the people who actually need it
00:12:21.020 because generally Uber and Lyft, they're much cheaper than the regular old archaic taxi system.
00:12:28.980 So it's costing people jobs and costing commuters money and convenience.
00:12:36.480 Why did they do this?
00:12:38.000 Why do you think they did this?
00:12:40.740 They added this thing in that nobody else really has.
00:12:43.180 Is it to protect the taxi union while keeping their campaign promises to bring Uber and Lyft?
00:12:49.920 I don't understand this.
00:12:52.260 Well, the excuse that they say at the beginning, it was that this regulation was made because of people's safety.
00:13:07.280 But I believe that it's not people's safety, it's taxi lobby's safety.
00:13:13.200 We need to acknowledge that.
00:13:18.100 And I will tell you another interesting fact.
00:13:22.640 In 2016 and 2017, some statistics were released where it was demonstrated
00:13:31.480 that the difference of crash rates between Class 4 and Class 5 drivers, license holders,
00:13:41.820 it was just 1% of difference.
00:13:45.820 This made me think that this is basically an unnecessary restriction,
00:13:53.420 again, just to protect the taxi lobbies.
00:13:56.780 Let's now take a look at some of the problems with the Transportation Board
00:14:04.620 that is deciding these things for, I guess, private entrepreneurs,
00:14:09.580 because that's really what an Uber and Lyft driver is.
00:14:12.800 It doesn't sound like any of them have any experience or very much experience being an entrepreneur.
00:14:20.520 Most of them are just government cronies enjoying patronage appointments.
00:14:25.440 I mean, Catherine Reed, the chair of the Passenger Transportation Board,
00:14:31.300 if I'm reading this correctly,
00:14:33.780 she has a long history of serving in government,
00:14:38.960 serving as the deputy minister in positions in the B.C. government.
00:14:43.800 She was the chief economist for the Cayman Islands government
00:14:47.100 as well as Yukon's public service commissioner.
00:14:49.780 I don't know what any of that has to do with permitting Uber and Lyft drivers
00:14:59.320 to drive people safely the way they are in the rest of the country.
00:15:02.360 There is something that I want to make clear.
00:15:10.340 You were mentioning about the chair of the board, Catherine Reed.
00:15:16.060 Yes.
00:15:17.720 She was nominated by the NDP after John Horgan got elected.
00:15:24.280 The question is, how can we prove that they are independent at all from the government
00:15:32.900 if she was nominated by the NDP?
00:15:37.680 And as you mentioned previously,
00:15:40.360 her background is not related with this kind of decisions.
00:15:48.780 And she's not the only one.
00:15:51.500 Also, the other members of the PTV,
00:15:54.660 if you analyze their backgrounds,
00:15:57.120 they have nothing to do with entrepreneurs
00:16:01.120 or these kind of policies
00:16:03.820 which affects the rights-sharing legislation.
00:16:09.840 Yeah, there's another member on the board named William Bell,
00:16:14.100 and he looks like he was put there just to protect the taxi lobby.
00:16:19.720 He joined the current board in 2008,
00:16:23.760 or joined the board in February 2008,
00:16:27.060 but his current one-year term expires June 30th, 2020,
00:16:30.300 so he's been renewed by the NDP a bunch of times.
00:16:34.020 But he was the member of the board
00:16:35.920 that in 2012 stifled Uber's low-key entry into the Vancouver market
00:16:41.800 by enforcing rules that required Uber
00:16:45.080 to charge at least $75 per ride
00:16:48.520 as though they were limousines.
00:16:50.500 So they were...
00:16:51.280 I mean, it's really crazy.
00:16:54.440 Like, tell me that's not designed
00:16:58.280 to keep people from jumping in an Uber
00:17:01.180 when they make them charge a limousine-like rides.
00:17:03.760 It's crazy.
00:17:05.540 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
00:17:08.200 These people who are the policymakers,
00:17:12.160 they're not thinking about other people's needs,
00:17:15.740 and as we previously discussed,
00:17:18.240 this is just measures that they are taking
00:17:22.360 to protect the taxi lobby.
00:17:25.160 Now, Stranded BC,
00:17:27.660 even though you finally,
00:17:31.960 after 11 years of Uber and Lyft being available
00:17:34.900 in the rest of North America,
00:17:36.520 you finally have Uber and Lyft in British Columbia.
00:17:39.700 But your work isn't done
00:17:41.800 because I guess you guys have a petition
00:17:44.700 to get rid of that Class 4 licensing restriction?
00:17:51.560 Yes.
00:17:52.280 In fact, we are not done
00:17:53.640 until we make it sure
00:17:55.680 that this Class 4 license will be removed,
00:17:59.680 and therefore we want to bring the opportunity
00:18:03.120 for other people
00:18:04.260 to be able to drive for these companies.
00:18:07.340 But the most important
00:18:08.240 is that we want to expand these services
00:18:10.400 through all British Columbia,
00:18:13.080 not just only Vancouver,
00:18:14.520 because Vancouver is not busy.
00:18:17.180 British Columbia has other places
00:18:18.600 which need these services.
00:18:20.260 And how do people find out
00:18:23.980 about the work you're doing
00:18:25.720 at Stranded BC,
00:18:26.800 and how do they support you?
00:18:28.320 What's the best way
00:18:29.080 to get information on what you're doing?
00:18:31.900 Please visit our website,
00:18:33.640 strandedbc.ca,
00:18:35.460 and also you can follow us
00:18:37.140 in our social media platforms,
00:18:39.700 basically Twitter and Facebook,
00:18:42.840 where we are constantly posting content,
00:18:45.580 and we are keeping updated people
00:18:47.360 regarding the last ride-sharing news.
00:18:52.080 And please support us.
00:18:53.900 Please support us,
00:18:54.580 and let's make this happen.
00:18:56.680 Yeah, I can't recommend the website enough.
00:18:59.720 It really has basically an encyclopedia
00:19:02.740 of what has happened
00:19:03.760 to keep Uber and Lyft out
00:19:05.920 and protect the taxi lobby.
00:19:09.180 And yeah, it's updated regularly
00:19:11.160 with all the breaking news
00:19:13.780 about all the new ride-sharing companies
00:19:15.960 that are being approved.
00:19:17.360 Or at least fighting to be approved.
00:19:19.880 So viewers at home,
00:19:21.260 please do take a look
00:19:22.300 at Stranded BC's website.
00:19:24.320 Luis, I want to thank you so much
00:19:25.480 for coming on the show.
00:19:27.480 And please, let us know
00:19:29.060 if we can have you back
00:19:30.080 when something else breaks in the news
00:19:32.540 with regard to ride-sharing
00:19:34.060 in British Columbia.
00:19:35.700 Thanks for inviting me to your show.
00:19:37.960 And of course,
00:19:39.120 I will be more than welcome.
00:19:41.220 Thanks, Luis.
00:19:42.660 Thanks to you.
00:19:47.360 Like I said from the beginning,
00:19:56.120 I don't actually use Uber and Lyft
00:19:58.080 all that often,
00:19:59.180 maybe when I'm traveling.
00:20:00.420 But I do care about job creation,
00:20:02.160 and I do care about free markets,
00:20:03.880 and I do think that competition
00:20:05.500 makes everything and everybody better.
00:20:07.700 And that's why I'm pro-Uber
00:20:09.140 and pro-Lyft as an option
00:20:11.320 for commuters in cities.
00:20:13.080 If you don't like them,
00:20:15.160 don't take them.
00:20:16.480 It's really all that simple.
00:20:18.260 And I think it's absolutely appalling
00:20:20.160 that politicians in the NDP
00:20:21.760 would use their role
00:20:22.920 on a ride-sharing committee
00:20:24.040 to protect the value
00:20:25.800 of their father's taxi license.
00:20:29.480 It doesn't matter
00:20:30.240 what side of the Rockies they're on, really.
00:20:33.640 The NDP are the same all over, aren't they?
00:20:36.220 Protecting big, powerful union interests
00:20:38.880 while hurting the working man
00:20:41.000 they claim to advocate for.
00:20:43.100 Well, everybody,
00:20:44.260 that's the show for tonight.
00:20:45.260 Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:20:47.040 I'll see everybody back here
00:20:48.220 in the same time,
00:20:49.220 in the same place next week.
00:20:50.800 And remember,
00:20:51.780 don't let the government tell you
00:20:53.300 that you've had too much to think.
00:21:12.580 that you've had too much to think.
00:21:14.000 Well, let the women, 1.00
00:21:18.580 and then let the government tell you
00:21:19.800 that you've had too much to think.
00:21:21.220 Now until you've done it,
00:21:22.100 you've had too much to thank you.
00:21:23.400 Oh, God.