by arthur Weinreb,
October 12, 2004
The anti-business and anti-car Toronto City Council recently enacted a bylaw that puts severe restrictions upon vehicles that can be used as taxis on the city's streets. Under the bylaw, cars that are more than five years old must be replaced by brand new no-mileage vehicles. It is estimated that this requirement will cost the industry an extra $10 million a year and will cause hardship, not only to fleet owners but to individual cabbies. The passage of the bylaw was led by Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong and his sidekick, Howard Moscoe.
The supposed reason for enacting the new law is to prevent "chop shop" cabs from cruising the streets of Toronto--that is, cabs that are put together with various parts of different older autos. The reasoning, like so many of council's rationale for restricting the rights of Torontonians, simply doesn't hold up. In a perfect world where everyone has unlimited resources like the council has, brand new taxis would be preferable to older ones. But there has been no evidence that that taxis that are currently on the city's streets pose a danger to drivers, passengers, other motorists or pedestrians. There has not been a rash of accidents caused by taxicabs that were unsafe.
although it is perhaps too much to expect the leftist elites at City Hall to notice such mundane things, we actually have a plethora of laws to prevent unsafe vehicles from being on the roads (don't any of these councillors ever watch OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley on the TV station that adores Toronto Council – Citytv). The reality is that safety is not the reason the bylaw was passed--ideology is. The majority on council not only hates cars but have a disdain for business, at least those endeavours that are legal.
Those on the left of the political spectrum favour group rights over the rights of individuals. Poor Little Joe Pantalone still can't understand why people call him a Communist after spearheading a bylaw that prevents owners from cutting down trees on their own property "for the greater good". But in the case of the taxi bylaw, the lefties even put their anti-car and anti-business agenda ahead of one of their most cherished groups-- immigrants.
Next to the homeless, immigrants are the left's favourite group. Mayor David Miller can hardly utter a sentence (except when he's begging other levels of government for money) without using the word "diversity". He always talks about how welcome immigrants are in the City of Toronto. Yet this new bylaw is going to bring economic hardship to the city's cab drivers, the majority of whom came to Toronto from other parts of the world.
a lot of criticism has been leveled at the rules and regulations that prevent highly educated people from other countries from practicing their professions or using their skills in this country. The media is constantly talking about immigrants who are doctors, lawyers and nuclear physicists, but who are forced to drive taxis to support themselves and their families. and now the arrogant left wing councillors are making it more difficult for them to even do that. City Council doesn't care about people--they care about their left wing ideology. as long as immigrants serve their purpose by allowing councillors to show how caring and tolerant they are, the city mothers don't care if many end up on welfare because they cannot afford to drive taxis anymore.
The mayor thinks the new bylaw is great because having new cars on the roads will make the city look prettier. What crap! The homeless sleeping on the litter-filled sidewalks while traffic gridlock blocks the roads are perfectly fine, but we can't have three-year-old taxis on the street.
Eventually those who are forced by circumstances to drive a cab for a living will head north--after all, that's where all the businesses and people are going.