Article content continued

“This is a tough time,” he says.

In only eight months of operation, Uber has wrought massive change in Ottawa’s taxi industry.

The company’s smartphone-friendly system has siphoned tens of thousands of fares from conventional cab companies, slashed the incomes of drivers ­— many of them immigrants — and depressed the resale value of taxi plates.

Some cab drivers have crossed the street to join the upstart firm in a desperate bid to reclaim lost income. Others are boiling mad.

Politicians are being asked to take sides on the issue, which cabbies frame as unfair competition and Uber supporters hail as disruptive innovation.

At Queen’s Park, Ottawa South MPP John Fraser’s bill to crack down on “bandit cabs” has passed second reading and is now before committee. In Ottawa, city council this week approved a full review of the taxi bylaw and other “emerging issues” raised by ride-sharing services.

As the debate unfolds here and in cities around the world, Uber continues to defy regulators and win customers.

Diane Deans, chair of the committee that will examine the city’s taxi bylaw, says there can be no doubt that Uber is popular, particularly among young people tethered to their phones.

“Young people are choosing the sharing economy,” she says. “They’re choosing to ride-share, they’re choosing Uber, because they don’t want to pay cash, they want to do all transactions on their phones, they want to see where their car is and rate their driver … I suspect this is only the beginning of the sharing economy.”