Grieving mother questions why Toronto licensed 40,000 ride-hail drivers without mandatory training
More than 40,000 licenses for vehicle-for-hire drivers have been issued in the City of Toronto even though those drivers haven't received the mandatory training.
The city's licensing department says it's a temporary measure that allows drivers to continue to be licenced during the pandemic, but critics say the decisions to let untrained drivers carry passengers could make the city's roads less safe.
"I really do believe there's no excuse for this," said Cheryl Hawkes, whose 28-year-old son, Nicholas Cameron, died in an Uber vehicle in March 2018.
"They've exposed all of us, everybody who hires a vehicle to transport them, rideshares, limos, taxis – there's no legal requirement for training right now," she said.
Ride-share drivers and taxi drivers must have a class G or higher provincial driver's licence, pass screening and vehicle requirements, and carry $2 million in insurance coverage.
But in 2019, amid safety concerns including those related to Cameron's death, city council introduced mandatory training as a new requirement, which was supposed to be in place by June 2020.
"It is our understanding that as of today, there is still no training program," wrote Eric K Gillespie, a lawyer representing the taxi industry, to the city. "However, the city has licensed more than 40,000 drivers without requiring the training mandated under the by-law. In our respectful view, the lack of mandatory driver training creates a significant risk to the public."
City licensing staff say the pandemic hobbled their ability to provide any in-person training.
"In March of 2020, with the pandemic hitting us, it totally changed, and we weren't able to deliver training in classrooms and training in cars," said Carleton Grant, the director of Toronto's Municipal Licensing and Standards.
But that doesn't explain why the city continued to issue those licences, says Abdul Mohamoud, the CEO of Co-op taxi. He said the number of his drivers has shrunk along with demand in the pandemic, from 1,100 to fewer than 100 at one point.
"We haven't had any new drivers because our business dropped 90 per cent, so when the order came to stay at home, it was like an emergency brake that was pulled on our business," he said.
City Councillor Krystin Wong-Tam said that without an established training protocol in place, she doesn't believe the city should be issuing any more licences to Uber or Lyft drivers.
"I do not believe that COVID-19 is a legitimate reason on why we don't have mandatory training for drivers, largely because this council direction came in 2019. We do know that this is important to city council. We did say to city staff, 'Get this done.'"
Municipal Licensing Standards says it will be bringing a report forward in November.
-With files from Janice Golding.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Russian sentenced to life in Ukraine's 1st war crimes trial
A Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian was sentenced to life in prison on Monday in the first war crimes trial since Moscow invaded three months ago, unleashing a brutal conflict that has led to accusations of atrocities, left thousands dead, driven millions from their homes and flattened whole swaths of cities.

LIVE AT 9 PDT | Sunrise ceremony opens daylong Kamloops, B.C., memorial to mark graves detection anniversary
A memorial to mark the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the detection of an unmarked burial site at the former residential school at Kamloops, B.C. starts early Monday with a ceremony at sunrise and concludes with a closing evening prayer.
Storm leaves at least nine dead, many powerless across Ontario and Quebec
Tens of thousands of people remain without power after Saturday's powerful storm that left at least nine dead and caused extensive damage throughout southern Ontario and Quebec.
Wreckage found of plane that disappeared in Ontario with Alberta men onboard, police say
The wreckage of a small plane that disappeared last month in northern Ontario with two men aboard has been located in Lake Superior Provincial Park.
What is a 'derecho'? Climatologist explains Saturday's powerful storm
The storm that moved across Ontario and Quebec Saturday is known as a 'derecho', a powerful kind of windstorm that is long lasting and far-reaching.
Walk out at trade meeting when Russia spoke 'not one-off,' says trade minister
The United States and four other nations that walked out of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group meeting in Bangkok over the weekend underlined their support Monday for host nation Thailand, saying their protest was aimed solely at Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.
Trained dogs can identify COVID-19 by sniffing skin swabs: study
A new study that brought sniffer dogs to an airport to search for COVID-19 has found that dogs may be able to detect the virus with high accuracy just from smelling skin swabs.
Theories emerge for mysterious liver illnesses in children
Health officials remain perplexed by mysterious cases of severe liver damage in hundreds of young children around the world.
A new billionaire has been minted nearly every day during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has been good for the wallets of the wealthy. Some 573 people have joined the billionaire ranks since 2020, bringing the worldwide total to 2,668, according to an analysis released by Oxfam on Sunday. That means a new billionaire was minted about every 30 hours, on average, so far during the pandemic.