SAINT JOHN– A representative from Uber was in Saint John last week to speak with city staff from Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton about what it would take to bring their service to the province.

This comes after Saint John City Council passed a motion back in May ordering city staff to revisit the city’s ride-sharing bylaws to determine what would need to be done to allow services like Uber to operate in the city.

“Uber approached us and the thought was that we would reach out to Moncton and Fredericton simultaneously and have a representative from Uber come and give us a preliminary overview of their services,” said Ian MacKinnon, CEO of Saint John Transit, the department who recently became responsible for governing the city’s vehicle-for-hire bylaws. “How it works, what it would mean to the city, what it would mean to the bylaw, what it would mean to the consumer, just a general meeting on what the service has to offer and how it would work in the City of Saint John.”

Though it’s still very early in the process, MacKinnon says the idea to have representatives from Fredericton and Moncton also attend the meeting was so they could have the information too and possibly work together down the road.

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“Perhaps there would be an opportunity to share best practices or to even potentially if we would do something like Uber, maybe we would do it together all at the same time, which would make New Brunswick more attractive to [a company] like Uber,” said MacKinnon.

“We’re very small, so the thought was perhaps we should have a collective voice between Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John speaking to Uber and that’s what we did.”

At the meeting, Mackinnon says the cities shared their current bylaws with Uber. Uber also shared the bylaws from other cities where the company operates to demonstrate what specific things the cities would need to have for Uber to operate there. Right now, Uber does not operate anywhere in Atlantic Canada.

“We talked to Uber’s representative about what other cities have done and what their bylaws look like and how there were provisions for Uber and Uber-like companies in those bylaws and what we would have to do to make that happen,” said MacKinnon.

The Uber representative also met with Saint John City Councillor Greg Norton, who’s been spearheading the charge to bring the company to the city. He says striking the proper bylaw is crucial for Uber to come to the city.

“Uber will be in Saint John if we strike the right bylaw. Those bylaws exist and we have examples of those bylaws today, exactly what those bylaws should look like,” says Norton. “But it’s really important that when we get to that point of first and second and third reading before council, that bylaw is written exactly the way Uber needs to see it in order for them to come into Saint John absolutely unencumbered.”

This would mean the city conceding some regulatory control to Uber when it comes to things like vehicle age, criminal record checks and insurance. These are things Norton says Uber does in-house through their own technology.

“It may mean concessions or some flexibilities in terms of some of the things we otherwise preside over or own ourselves,” says Norton.

“Remember Uber is a technology firm and it can do that from one place. We don’t need to need to do every single thing from City Hall, when in 72 countries and thousands of municipalities and cities all over the world, Uber can do that from one headquarters.”

MacKinnon says the next step is for city staff to put together a report to present to council. This report could or could not include a recommendation. Either way, he says it will be then up to council to decide on what action to take next, whether to go ahead and draft a new bylaw or scrap the idea.

“This is still very early. It was our first meeting just to understand. So what we have done and what Uber has graciously done is shared best practices from many other cities from across Canada and has given us a number of things to think about and in fact has even looked at our publically available bylaws and said, ‘If we were to come to Saint John, these are the things you need to think about,’” says MacKinnon.

“There’s no task or activity to make a change to rewrite the bylaw to include Uber. What will take place from here is there will most likely be a forthcoming council report back with findings and there may be further direction at that time from council.”

Meanwhile, Norton says he’s anxiously awaiting that report.

“It’s up to us to work with staff, to hear what staff recommendations are on that in terms what a bylaw would be. Uber knows exactly what they want to see in that bylaw. If they get the bylaw that they’re looking for, we’ll get Uber,” says Norton.

“I’m anxiously awaiting for that and working with staff and pushing for that to come to council as quickly as we can get it. I say in the absence of a bylaw, we’ll never see ridesharing in the form on Uber here.”

Norton hopes to have a new bylaw passed by early 2019.