Beck Taxi suing City of Toronto for failing to enforce accredited vehicle-for-hire driver training
Toronto's largest taxi brokerage is suing the city for $50,000 for allegedly allowing thousands of untrained and inadequately trained commercial drivers to “fill our streets.”
On Wednesday, Beck Taxi filed a claim at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against the City of Toronto for reportedly failing to fulfill its mandate to “create and implement regulations that protect public safety” by not requiring vehicle-for-hire drivers to undergo mandatory accredited training.
- Download our app to get local alerts on your device
- Get the latest local updates right to your inbox
The taxi company is claiming that the city’s existing programs, which at this point include an online-only course that can be completed in less than an hour, do not take into account the safety of all road users.
Among other things, Beck Taxi wants a mandatory injunction that would compel the City of Toronto to enforce its own accredited training bylaw for commercial drivers. They also want the licences of inadequately and untrained drivers revoked.
“It’s been six years that we’ve [been] begging the city do a good job,” Kristine Hubbard, Beck Taxi’s operations manager, told CP24.com. “It’s a huge mess. It’s very dangerous and irresponsible.”
The City of Toronto, in an email to CP24.com, said it has not been served with the court application from Beck Taxi, and “cannot comment on matters that are before the courts.”
Prior to 2016, vehicle-for-hire drivers in Toronto were required to undergo extensive and ongoing training, which included safe driving, the Human Rights Code, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), geography, driver safety, and customer service.
Those training requirements were, however, eliminated in 2016.
“The consequences were predictably quick and deadly,” the taxicab company said in a release.
Three years later, in 2019, Toronto City Council passed a bylaw that require mandatory training for new and renewing licensees. This accredited training program began on June 1, 2020 and included both in-car and defensive driving components.
However by October 2021, city staff had yet to set up an officially recognized program for this course.
Beck Taxi’s lawyer, Eric Gillespie, said this resulted in a public outcry as the city continued to issue and renew licences to “thousands of vehicle-for-hire drivers,” despite its own bylaw.
In Nov. 2021, licensing was paused until accredited training programs were put in place. City staff also reissued a month-long request for proposals for vehicle-for-hire training programs at that time.
“The RFP omitted most of the 2019 Public Safety and Training Measures from the requirement,” Beck Taxi said in its claim, which noted that the in-car and in-class components of the course were not longer required.
In April 2022, the city began accrediting training programs, but it was only required for new drivers.
Toronto’s roughly 50,000 existing drivers were not required to complete training as a condition of renewing their licences until last month, the taxicab company noted.
Two months later, the city reinstituted basic driver training with six accredited providers, however Beck Taxi says issues persist as there are no provisions to identify whether the test-taker is the same person seeking the licence, adding that tests contain questions that can be repeated indefinitely until they are answered correctly, which also allows participants to capture and share materials and questions.
The taxi company also said despite its many requests, the program still does not include or require an in-car or defensive driving component.
“Beck has been deeply concerned that the public interest has not been served and public safety has been put at risk by the actions of the City,” Beck Taxi said.
“Consequently, Beck had worked with Centennial College to design and implement a driver training program that included the foregoing primary training requirements in order to ensure that public safety was protected - an effort that was ignored by the City.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
OPP responds to apparent video of officer supporting anti-Trudeau government protestors
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Loud boom in Hamilton caused by propane tank, police say
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.