There is nothing new under the sun. As proof, I offer up the taxi industry in Ottawa.

Probably not what Ecclesiastes imagined when he uttered his most famous phrase, but he nailed it. The best description you will ever hear of the taxi industry in Ottawa.

Something perpetually repeating. In this case, the mistakes of a broken-down industry.

If you doubt the truth of this, I ask you think back to a time -- not that long ago, really, although it pre-dates some online media searches, so it seems the Dark Ages to many -- when the taxi industry was last in turmoil.

Sept. 26, 2000.

It was a Tuesday. In case you've forgotten. A pleasant autumn day and more than 400 cabbies staged a two-hour protest in downtown Ottawa.

The cabbies clogged the streets of downtown Ottawa and blared their horns and angrily made their way from the bus terminal on Catherine St. to what is today Ottawa City Hall.

The cause of their anger? A report by former Regional Chair Andy Haydon that said the soon-to-be-amalgamated city should get rid of the cap on taxi plates.

Haydon said by limiting the number of cabs on the street, the city had allowed the industry to become a cartel. The new city should start anew. Issue non-transferrable plates, for a low yearly fee, and issue as many plates as people wanted.

Let the free market decide the fare, the quantity and quality of the cars and the level of customer service offered.

As you have just read, this suggestion caused cabbies to freak. They protested and demanded a meeting with the Transition Board (which they got). They threatened a city-wide-strike and also a class-action lawsuit against the city.

The cabbies said unfettered competition would destroy their livelihood. They were just barely surviving as it was. If the Haydon report was adopted, well, "things could get out of control," is how one protester put it on Sept. 26, 2000.

Sound familiar?

Haydon, by the way, stands by his old report. He says the city made a mistake by not adopting it.

"The taxi industry in this city is still a cartel and the city is still supporting it," he says. "It's a mess, frankly, what we have created here.

"What we have is about as far removed from what you would design, if you wanted a competitive industry offering good customer service, as can be imagined."

Haydon once said reforming the taxi industry was perhaps the most difficult task out there for a municipal politician. An almost impossible task that came with not even a whiff of an up side.

The dispatch companies and taxi unions would fight you tooth and nail. And the people you were trying to help -- the customers -- wouldn't have enough invested in the game to bother helping you.

Taking on the taxi industry was just offering yourself up as a punching bag.

That used to discourage him. This political reality. From time to time, he thought the problems plaguing the industry were unsolvable.

He doesn't think that anymore. He believes the game-changer the industry has always needed has finally arrived. And yes, he thinks it goes by the name of Uber.

"A lot of the stumbling blocks to reforming the industry are going to disappear in the next couple years, if they haven't already," says Haydon. "The taxi plates are going to be worthless pretty soon, for one.

"And I think the dispatch companies are going to disappear. We don't need a middleman anymore between the driver and the customer. Uber is the future."

Some thoughts from the former Regional Chair. Cue the protest.