Uber on Tuesday threatened to stop services in Canada’s Quebec Province in the middle of next month, saying proposed new ride-sharing regulations aimed at leveling the field with taxis are too onerous.
“We are going to have to cease our operations in Quebec on October 14,” Uber Quebec director-general Jean-Nicolas Guillemette told a news conference, while also calling for negotiations to find a solution to the deadlock that would allow the company to stay.
An Uber stoppage in the province would affect cities such as Montreal, Quebec City and Gatineau.
The Uber executive accused the Quebec government of “trying to impose old [taxi] rules on a completely new technological model,” saying “major changes” in the regulations would force Uber to effectively operate like a taxi company with full-time drivers.
Under the new regulations unveiled on Friday last week, Uber would not be able to attract and retain part-time or occasional drivers, he said.
According to the company, Uber signed up 10,000 drivers in Quebec who made more than 8 million trips over the past year.
Guillemette urged the government to reconsider its position and renew a pilot program that allowed Uber to operate in the province over the past year, without any changes.
The original one-year test program, which is slated to end in the middle of next month, required Uber to collect and pay taxes on each trip made by its drivers. It also capped the time worked by all drivers to a total of 50,000 hours per week.
Quebec Minister of Transportation Laurent Lessard said at the time that it would allow taxi and Uber drivers “to compete on a more balanced playing field.”
Last week, the government renewed the pilot, but with stricter conditions that would require Uber drivers to undergo 35 hours of training — the same as taxi drivers — and a criminal background check by police. Uber vehicles would also be required to undergo annual safety inspections.
Uber has seen its global popularity explode since it launched in 2009 in San Francisco, but also faces bans in other major cities, including Cape Town, Mumbai and New Delhi.
While the company has faced protests in Canada from taxi companies and drivers, the public has been generally supportive as it expanded to more than a dozen cities.
Edmonton, the capital of Alberta Province, became the first Canadian city to vote to legalize Uber at the start of last year.
Ottawa also gave Uber the green light to begin service last year, along with Halifax, Windsor and other cities. In Toronto, Canada’s largest city, the municipal government created a new category of taxi license required for Uber drivers.
Taxi Intermediaries in Quebec, which represents about 2,000 taxi owners in the province, called Uber’s threat to interrupt its service if it does not get concessions from the province “blackmail.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last