Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: your Uber Boogie Man doesn't scare me

by Todd Romaine

 If you want to see the war on Uber in Canada, check out this recently compiled website that hopes to dispel the 'sensationalist' claims by Uber that it will offer consumers more affordable choices when it comes to ground transportation: http://taxitruths.ca/

A quick review of the website reveals an amateur approach to marketing, with disjointed arguments about the case against an alternative provider, mixed in with irrelevant facts about taxis in Canada. 

You see, the taxi monopoly in Canada has never had to market their services to consumers per se, but rather spends their time working on politicians to limit new entries to market and increase fares. They have been waging a war on consumers for years to force you to pay more and wait more. If you can control the supply side of things, you can manipulate the demand favourably. This is one taxi truth they don't want you to know about, but rather are creating the Uber Boogie Man to scare off consumers to the notion of "choice" which would increase supply, draw down demand, and reduce overall costs for the traveler.

Under their page of "The Truth", the Canadian Taxi Monopoly indirectly paints future Uber drivers as insecure and the service of limited value. In other words, you will be uninsured and be driven by some amateur driver versus a seasoned, professional taxi operator. That somehow driving a motor vehicle is a specialized skill set now that should disqualify people like you and I from entry into this exclusive market. And despite Uber's legitimate claim of insurance coverage exceeding that of the taxi industry, the Canadian Taxi Monopoly continues to spread untruths about coverage because ultimately their arguments are that weak.

Furthermore, as a final desperate plea for you to discard new entrants into the marketplace, the Canadian Taxi Monopoly is appealing to the consumers' moral compass to suddenly link Uber's entry as negative in the form of job losses and earning a decent wage. In other words, we are being told monopolies are good because they artificially keep some people in business.

The most hilarious part of this whole debacle is that somehow the Canadian Taxi Monopoly think that consumers will actually go to this website and become ardent supporters of theirs in this "selfless campaign". For too long the Canadian Taxi Monopoly has disregarded the consumer when it comes to professionalism, not hiring fluent and polite drivers and essentially cutting costs while lobbying for rising prices. Now they want us to get "educated" so that we can have more of the same!

No thanks.

I want choice and cheaper fares please.


Related resources
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Canadian Taxi Monopoly is attempting to curb consumer choice
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants