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If Ottawa wants to pretend to legalize ride-sharing services like Uber without threatening the city’s entrenched taxi companies, Calgary shows us the way.

In a 14-1 vote this week, Calgary’s city council voted for new rules that let “transportation networking companies” like Uber compete with Calgary’s taxi drivers. Sort of. Calgary’s taxi companies and drivers say they’re satisfied with Calgary council’s decision, because it creates a level playing field for cabbies and ride-sharing drivers alike. Yes. The playing field is weedy, littered with garbage and broken glass and something over in that corner looks like it’s on fire, but the field is level.

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As you know, companies like Uber say they’re really just technology providers. Independent drivers who meet the company’s basic standards sign up with the Uber app and customers who want rides use the app to summon drivers and make credit-card payments. Uber can be cheaper than cabs because, first, it sidesteps the archaic system of taxi plates that limits the number of cabs on the road and allows the holders of the scarce plates to cream off profits from the industry while contributing exactly nothing to it, and second, it sidesteps the very important system of licensing and insurance that makes sure people driving other people for money are really qualified to do so.