The City of Toronto is joining the growing number of legal battles being waged across the country to try to bar Uber taxi and limousine services from operating on their roads.

On Tuesday, the city filed an application for a court injunction against the San Francisco-based company, whose popular car services have gone international but are accused by regulators of breaking the law and risking the public's "health and safety."

An inability to keep the company operating within city rules indicates Canadian municipalities, including Montreal and Vancouver, may lack the tools to prevent unregulated services from carrying on business.

“By its actions, it is the city’s opinion that Uber is jeopardizing public safety, including that of individuals they are recruiting as drivers,” said Tracey Cook, executive director of Toronto’s licensing and standards division, at a city hall news conference. “They are continuing to operate in flagrant disregard of the laws of both the city and the province.”

Uber created a mobile application that allows anyone with a smartphone to hail a taxi or a limousine by pressing a few buttons. It uses GPS technology to match available drivers and passengers based on their locations. In September, the company started offering a new UberX service in Toronto that recruits non-licensed taxi drivers in unmarked cars to take users from point A to B.

The city argues that Uber has been operating illegally in Toronto since it arrived in 2012. Since then, Uber has been charged with 36 bylaw infractions, Cook said.

The city is asking the Superior Court to hear its request for an injunction as soon as possible. A date has not yet been scheduled.

Going against city bureaucrats' years-long fight, Mayor-elect John Tory sided with the growing business in a statement Tuesday evening, saying Uber and similar services are “here to stay.”

“It is time our regulatory system got in line with evolving consumer demands in the 21st century. As mayor, I intend to see that it does, while being fair to all parties, respecting the law and public safety,” he said.

Uber has maintained it exists as a technology provider and isn’t directed by taxi licensing standards.

In an email, Uber spokesperson Lauren Altmin defended the company’s place in Toronto.

“It’s disappointing that city bureaucrats have deployed expensive legal tactics to attempt to halt progress, limit consumer choice and force a broken transportation model on the public,” Altmin wrote. “Torontonians have taken to Uber in droves because it offers something better than what bureaucrats and the taxi cartel have provided to date.”

With Uber — which has been valued at $17 billion — already settled into the taxi landscape, the city’s only recourse is to fight the company in court.

The city has two major issues with the service: that it is not properly licensed to operate as a taxi or limousine brokerage, and that it is also using unlicensed and unregulated drivers that may pose a risk to the public’s “health and safety.”

A taxi brokerage, which costs $300 per year, essentially acts as a middleman between passengers and drivers. The city is arguing that by definition, Uber’s taxi and also its limousine service works as a brokerage “without the lawful authority to do so.”

“It is abundantly clear from Uber’s operations that it is not engaged in or facilitating carpooling. It brokers vehicle transportation for compensation only,” the city’s court application reads.

The larger issue is Uber’s black car services and new UberX service that allows passengers to hail unlicensed, unmarked cars to ferry them to their destinations — in some cases at a discounted price below that of the city’s set fares.

In Toronto, the UberX service charges passengers a base fare of $2.75, and then 30 cents per minute and 90 cents per kilometre. There is also a $1 fee that goes towards driver safety training.

What’s known as black car service poses a risk to both drivers and passengers, said Cook, a former detective with the Toronto police fraud unit, because Uber drivers are not forced to comply with inspections, to get training or to pay for commercial insurance.

Cook said Uber has so far been resistant to complying with city rules. Bylaw infractions leveled against the company have yet to be resolved in court, where a separate battle resumes next month.

Uber says it offers “safe, reliable, environmentally friendly and affordable transportation options that are designed for what consumers want today.”

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Kristine Hubbard, the operations manager for Beck Taxi, one of Toronto’s established companies and which stands to lose the most to Uber, says Beck was “pleasantly surprised” by the city’s court action.

“I do think they have the tools to be able to manage this,” Hubbard said. “We had hoped that that would have happened as soon as they sort of landed here.”

Carolyn Bauer, national spokesperson for the Canadian Taxicab Operators Group, said cities have been slow to tackle the problem.

“It’s just a lack of understanding on how they were going to regulate something like this instead of taking a stand and saying: This is not in our laws. This is not in our bylaws. This is not in our rules,” she said.

The court challenge comes during a week when the company has also faced backlash over reports that top executive Emil Michael suggested tracking down and publishing personal information about journalists who gave the service unfavourable coverage.

Across the country, it is still unclear whether ongoing legal challenges against Uber and other companies can be successful.

Mississauga also deemed the UberX service against its regulations this summer and vowed to fight it under bylaws.

In Montreal, where Uber launched last month, Mayor Denis Coderre told CBC he thought the service was “illegal,” but it’s not clear how the city will fight its presence.

In Vancouver, a coalition of cab companies has started its own court action against Uber before the service even launches there.

Uber has also faced protests from drivers in the U.S., who are now pushing back against the company’s discounted fares and policies.

For Toronto, those fighting Uber’s encroachment hope the threat of legal action will prevent others from attempting the company’s success here.

Cook promised to meet that challenge if it comes.

“If any other company comes in to attempt to do the same thing that Uber’s done, our response will be the same.”

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