Article content continued

Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod immediately complained that Fraser had stolen thunder from a similar bill she was planning to introduce on Thursday.

https://twitter.com/MacLeodLisa/status/540245174384099329

Uber says it’s a technology company, just mediating transactions between willing customers and freelance drivers. As far as the city is concerned, it’s an illegal taxi brokerage and its drivers are bandit cabbies. The city has run stings and charged Uber drivers since Uber started operating here in September, but it has limited power to punish them: a capital investment last summer valued Uber at $17 billion US, so a $500 fine wouldn’t be much to a company willing to spend some money to fight its way into a new market.

Despite the city’s efforts, Uber’s smartphone app showed half a dozen cars ready for passengers’ orders in downtown Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon.

A $30,000 fine and the power to suspend licences and seize cars would change the terms of engagement.

“Uber welcomes consideration of sensible regulations that seek to codify expanded transportation alternatives and ensure public safety,” Uber spokesman Xavier Van Chau said by email. “We are concerned, however, that this private member’s bill seeks to throttle innovation and wrongly group companies like Uber under this legislation.”

He also produced a letter, sent from Premier Kathleen Wynne to the City of Ottawa when she was transportation minister in 2011, saying the provincial government’s lawyers didn’t think impounding bandit taxicabs was constitutional.