Quebec Is Giving Taxi Drivers Up To $45,000 To Make Up For Uber Losses
Based on prior government interventions it’s understandable from my perspective why the Quebec government would give up to $45,000 to its Taxi drivers. You can read the CTV article by clicking the link below:
Quebec will compensate taxi drivers up to $45,000 for Uber losses
My thoughts regarding this Taxi vs. Uber debate is innovation vs. old world thinking. This is why I’m anti-union. In the 1980’s one of the cartoons I grew up on was Jetsons, this show was based on what the writers thought the future would be. The truth is, had it not been for the entitled amongst us there’s a great chance we could have been building colonies in space. Earth could have been at peace, the environment will live in would be cleaner and the way humans viewed each other would be a lot better.
But we humans have protectionist problems, we want the government to remedy competition problems. Now, let’s be honest and tell the story fairly. There are flaws in the free market that can’t be immediately addressed, at times there needs to be a referee, but should the enforcement of the referee be a blanketed suppression of the free market or should it be a law that if broken gets a fine?
Regulations are why Taxi drivers are in the predicament they’re in, these regulations were obviously made to bring some prestige to the taxi driving industry and also to help raise the wages of the drivers. Then comes along Uber, who in reality is nothing more than a ridesharing platform. Uber undermines everything the Cab industry built via the government because it’s model is based on volunteerism and built into its technological model is safety, because it’s a social riding application and all drivers can be identified and therefore held accountable.
This is what tends to happen when the government regulates and an industry is over-regulated. The government is actually the root cause of criminal behavior. The interesting thing about the Uber, taxi mess in Quebec is who really paid up to $45,000 per taxi driver? One could argue it was paid via the taxes generated from the Uber drivers. Which is again the free market funding government sluggishness.
Taxi drivers can’t compete with ride-sharing apps because there was no incentive for them to change their business model. The thought they had a monopoly on the market and technology caught up with them. This can and will happen to any industry, in fact in many ways government now more than ever is become more and more useless. Big government typically has it’s most value after or during a war. In wartimes people want easy answers, people want to have fun and relax when they have the time, but in times of economic prosperity, which Canada should be experiencing right now Government is really in the way.
I’ve been talking about Canada’s backward economy for years, we have missed the opportunity to become global economic leaders. It’s really irritating to me because it’s my kids that will pay for this buffoonery. The longer it takes for the Canadian economy to crash the longer it will take to recover. Primarily because Canada has so much bureaucracy as is, once the bureaucracy exists when structural economic problems arise it takes a whole lot longer to fix, plus because government officials will get paid anyway they’ll be in no rush to solve any of the economic problems facing everyday Canadians. This taxi story is a symbol of things to come.
Interesting times ahead.