The Toronto Star reports that Trentway-Wagar, an Ontario bus company, is trying to shut down PickupPal Online, a online ride sharing service. The Ontario government has said it will reconsider the applicable legislation.
Using the Net To Share Rides Illegal?
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Not the first time
This isn’t the first time. Ontario has prevented a Quebec ride s haring company called Allo-Stop from doing business in the province a couple years ago, based on complains from the bus industry.
Ref : [ link ]
This service is about reducing the number of cars on the road. So, if the government of Ontario decides to betray the population of Ontario, one of the possible solutions is to move this company overseas, and not to pay taxes to Canada.
The idea that ride sharing and bussing are equivalent and competing services is tenuous at best. This is just greedy. I remember being extremely disappointed when they successfully shut down the Allo Stop service. Doing it again? I’ll be taking the train.
Freedom
Whatever happened to this, from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.
This attack seems like a direct Charter issue to me. The free citizens who choose to communicate and associate using this system have individual Charter rights to do so freely. The relationships that they enter into are private, non-commercial, voluntary free associations that must not be impeded by law. Otherwise, it would equally become illegal for any two people to do something as simple as decide to go on a cost-shared trip together. The circumstances of how we meet, befriend each other, and what we choose to do and share together, are not legitimate topics of legislation in a free society, outside of preventing overtly harmfull or egregious criminal acts. Deciding to travel together, and share the costs, does not constitute harm. Indeed, for every reason, these choices most eloquently express in action many high Canadian values such as economic efficiency, environmental concern, and friendly cooperation. While I am glad to see a realatively unified disgust about this issue, I am more disgusted that it could even have become an issue in the first place. Our barely rational beurocracies are one of our biggest threats these days, and this is a gross tradgedy to us all.
really
so let me get this straight if me and some buds at work use any “communications setup” to basically coordinate a ride for all of us, that is illegal?
LIKE GO AHEAD and try that in court.
Yes i can see a company doing this gets in the way of taxis and those monopoly go bus and trains but more is better no?
instead we’ll have more polution and whats happening in greenland now?
Ride Boards
So does this essentially mean ride boards at universities are illegal as well? Certainly there is money exchanging hands in these cases
(I know I’ve asked for money to drive students across the province… but I just viewed that as being socially responsible as well as environmentally responsible, rather than some attempt to compete against taxis and buses)
HOV
Then they should also shut down high-occupancy vehicle lines since they encourage ride-sharing. I guess the word “sharing” is becoming more and more “negative”. We should reconsider teaching in kindergarten that sharing is good.
WALL-E
PLEASE CHECK THIS OUT! THE VIOLATION OF WALL-E UNDER BILL-C61.
[ link ]