QUEEN'S PARK - "Recently, I met with Hasan Savehilaghi, the CEO of Yellow London Taxi, as well as several other London taxi drivers. With less than 30 days’ notice and without any explanation, these drivers saw their insurance premiums almost double last fall.
Yellow London Taxi is not alone. Across the province, cab drivers, who operate on slim margins already and work up to 18 hours a day just to scrape by, are seeing steep premium increases. Many are older, immigrant drivers who worry they will not be able to find other jobs if they can no longer afford insurance. Some have been forced out by the unilateral cancellation of their coverage.
Speaker, an estimated 1,200 families in London and tens of thousands more across Ontario rely on taxicab industry employment. Ontario residents and visitors count on taxis for affordable, reliable transportation. That’s why the Financial Services Commission called attention to sky-high taxi insurance six years ago, recommending that a committee be struck to solve this problem. That recommendation has been ignored, first by the Liberals and now by the Conservatives. With the recent catastrophic insurance increases, the urgency of addressing this issue has never been greater.
Taxis are already heavily regulated when it comes to rates, equipment and how they operate. Why is this government hanging them out to dry when it comes to their insurance?"