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Toronto’s taxi industry is hemorrhaging business to Uber, which has prompted debate about whether cab drivers deserve our sympathy and support. If we’re not going to ban Uber, Jonathan Kay writes elsewhere, we owe them a “lump-sum payment to make them whole.”

Certainly there’s reason to feel sympathetic for their situation. Cab owners invested in licences and the value of those licenses, as well as the income earned by cab drivers, has diminished since the city permitted Uber to disrupt the cabbies’ government-sanctioned cartel. The city is therefore responsible, at least in part, for their losses. But this does not mean it’s responsible for providing compensation for them.

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This point becomes clear if we look at cab owners and cab drivers separately. Cab owners are investors. Cab drivers are labourers. Although there is some overlap between the two (about one-quarter of standard taxi licences are owned by individuals who also drive cabs), they are distinct groups, and the case for compensating either fails on different grounds.