Evidence of meeting #142 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was hamel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
The short answer is yes. In fact, we already have a homegrown app that's coming out in Toronto. It wants to be socially responsible, and it's learning how to do it. So, the answer is yes.
All we need is someone to answer the phone and tell a car to go pick someone up. We don't need all of this fancy stuff. That means nothing to us.
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
In the meantime, what responsibility would you suggest that we have as legislators—although we are federal, and this would probably have more provincial applications—for sectoral bargaining on this?
In your experience, do you think that adding unionized protection for workers would help against the exploitation that you see by allowing people to push back against decisions that are made or to challenge these algorithms?
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
If we had a true organizing effort with drivers, I'm sure we would get enough signatures to actually go and force collective bargaining through any employment standards across the country.
Federally, that can be helped along where this committee or any other committee can get together with provinces and say that this is really important and that they have to put some mandates in place so that gig workers know who their fellow workers are so that they can unite and organize if they so wish.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Wedge and Mr. Green.
For the next 24 minutes, I'm going to offer a six-minute round to each of our members, and then we'll see where that takes us.
Mr. Cooper, are you okay with six minutes?
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hamel, could you clarify things with regard to upfront fares? If you're an Uber driver, you will know how much you're going to get paid for that ride. Is that correct?
Public Affairs Manager, Uber Canada
That's correct.
Right now, in British Columbia and Ontario, drivers are offered a trip, and it says how much they're going to make and what route they're going to have to take.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
It is only presently in place in Ontario and British Columbia. Is that correct?
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
However, the driver would not know how much the customer is going to be charged for that ride. Am I right about that?
Public Affairs Manager, Uber Canada
That's correct.
What the driver sees is the amount they'll receive and the routing information.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Really, although the driver knows how much they're going to make, this does absolutely nothing to inform the driver about whether they're getting what they might deem to be a reasonable share of the fare charge to the customer. Would you dispute that?
Public Affairs Manager, Uber Canada
In fact, Uber sends a detailed document to drivers every week. That document shows their revenues, the government rates and the service fees charged by Uber.
So the process is fully transparent.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I would just invite Mr. Wedge to comment on that.
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
The answer is yes. At the end of the week, after all the business has been done, the driver is informed. He can actually look and see what his percentage take was for the whole week.
I know I received one recently. My take was 39%. All of the rest of that money went somewhere else, just not to me. However, it's after the fact. I don't know if I'm accepting that with full knowledge or not.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Absolutely.
Mr. Wedge, I heard anecdotally, with respect to the upfront fares, that some Uber drivers actually find it problematic. Uber uses algorithmic data to, for example, provide rides that they can accept or not accept, so-called “low balls”, and that may impact how much business they might receive from Uber. Is there any validity to that?
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
We have drivers who claim that they're being throttled a lot. We get that. The fact is, you can't say no forever because Uber will dump you off the platform.
Conservative
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
Absolutely. They say that you can accept or reject anyone you want; they just don't tell you what the ramifications are if your acceptance rate gets too low.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
In terms of your acceptance rate, are drivers incentivized or rewarded for accepting rides from which they take a lesser share?
President, Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario
From time to time, Uber will offer something called a “quest”, and that is when they will say, “If you do 30 rides in the next 48 hours, we'll give you an extra $40.” However, it's the carrot on the stick, because if you don't get all 30, you get nothing. At the same time, you're incentivized to get your trip count up, so you will take the cheap ones just to get your trip count up.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I'll go back to Mr. Hamel.
How much...? This is an average. If you don't have the number, I'd ask that you get back to the committee on it. How much money per kilometre does the average Uber driver earn?