The run-of-the-mill, hard-working, struggling cab driver has become a sort of local folk hero against the hypocrisy of municipal government, and cabbies everywhere should take heart. Their long battles with City of Toronto politicians may have taken a toll, but the 'Ballad of the Cab Driver' teaches the rest of us how treacherous the course when having to deal with fatcat City Hall.
For as long as can be remembered, a monopoly of city taxi cab plates has been virtually controlled by absentee professionals, with the lion's share being comfortably held by a single wealthy taxi fleet owner. Some of the taxi plate owners are said to be the close personal friends of elected councillors. A plate owner can rent it out or sell it for market value, which can be as lucrative as $95,000. Some taxi drivers have been on the waiting list for plates for as long as 20 years.
That was the state of affairs at the beginning of the bitter taxi industry controversy.
Last summer when cabbies, many of them hard-working humble immigrants tried to crack the monopoly, they were shouted down at a city hall meeting while the plate owners' lobbyist was treated as a special guest in the councillors' lounge. Before the melee was over, cagey city hall politicians had somehow managed to turn the inequities of the taxi cab plate monopoly into a call for a major clean up of the overall taxi industry.
Politicians rubberstamped some 50 changes recommended by a task force on how to improve Toronto's cab industry. Branded as discourteous and unprofessional at the task force level, Toronto cabbies will also have undercover inspectors in their cabs come New Year's Eve, on the suspicion that they could take advantage of tipsy passengers.
Changes to the plate system, which protects the status quo, included the implementation of the controversial Ambassador plate. The new Ambassador plate, issued after a $997, eight-week, taxi driver course at Centennial College, is worth zilch. The cabby never owns it, when he retires--he must return it to Toronto City Hall.
Some 37 taxi drivers were the first graduates of council's new Ambassador Taxicab Training Course. Their nominated valedictorian, veteran cabby David Frankel, graduated as a rebel.
"I am going to show (the city) what they taught us", Frankel vows, "and the error of their ways."
For cabbies, nothing has changed since implementation of the city’s 50 recommended changes to improve Toronto’s beleaguered cab industry.
"Why would anyone work for low pay, six shifts, 60 hours a week, with no family life? With so many opportunities, why would any of us do that for so long," asks Frankel. "We all stuck with this business because the plate was waiting for us at the end. And now that's gone."
City Hall rebels come in all ages and from a variety of backgrounds. When the city tried to force a smoking bylaw that couldn't be enforced on the restaurant industry, a bar owner of Asian heritage and a young Iranian restaurateur forced civic politicians back to the drawing board.
With the increasingly intrusive style of city politicians now plaguing the taxi industry, a group of drivers has filed a $50-million class-action lawsuit against the city to reverse the new policy and get the new permits converted into old-style plates.
Court judges, regularly, if not consistently, have ruled against the city.
With civic elections scheduled for November of 2000, time is also on the side of cab drivers. Meanwhile, on graduation night of the Ambassador course, a cake in the shape of a taxi cab, was served up. Rather than the congratulatory fare, the cake was filled with a program of pompous speeches form politicians, bureaucrats and college administrators with not a line invited from the student body.
Silly city councillors may have unwittingly given new meaning to the expression: "That takes the cake."