[Poster]

Originally Posted by blankall

Other posters have mentioned it, but the major issue with taxis is the licensing system.

You have insanely priced licenses in extremely limited numbers. The average driver does not own their license anymore. So you have a system where driver's have to pay a fee to a rich guy, who does no actual work. All he does is finance a license, which is an entirely artificial creation.

This is why the current taxi system is flawed and archaic. The system should consist of drivers being paid for their labour, not a group of license owners getting richer at the expense of drivers and customers.

Other services provided by taxi companies, like dispatch, are equally archaic. Most taxi companies are using apps now anyways.

Currently taxi licenses cost $100,000 in Calgary, which is doable for an average person. So the above argument isn't quite so applicable. However, in Vancouver the price is about $1,000,000.

It's a similar problem across many industries in Canada: Housing, fishing, dairy, etc... For whatever reason our governments cannot control the price of anything. So we have these insane bubbles where the governments are afraid to act, as they don't want to upset the people already in the market, who are heavily invested, or cause a collapse.

so i get why the license owners are upset and using their political influence but taxi drivers themselves should be embracing an alternative source of income.

they can tell the taxi owners to pay fair or fruck off!