Uber and Lyft launched in BC’s Vancouver after Stranded BC’s 11-year campaign led by Luis Andoval, but Class 4 commercial licenses—costing $500–$2,000 and taking months to obtain—block most drivers, especially suburban part-timers (75% of Metro Vancouver). The PTB, chaired by NDP-appointed Catherine Reed and anti-Uber advocate William Bell, imposed the rule despite negligible safety differences from Class 5 licenses. Stranded BC’s petition targets this taxi lobby-backed barrier, demanding fairer access for drivers and riders across BC. The episode reveals how union protection stifles innovation, leaving consumers with fewer options and drivers trapped in bureaucratic red tape. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunread and you're listening to a free audio only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
Tonight my guest is Luis Sondoval.
He's the campaign director for Stranded BC and they nearly single-handedly got Uber and Lyft into the marketplace in British Columbia.
I know it's shocking that British Columbia did not have Uber or Lyft until literally a couple weeks ago.
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Uber's Arrival in Metro Vancouver00:12:29
Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps are finally available in Vancouver, which is a victory for free markets and the consumer, but only sort of.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Did you know that Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing apps have only just come to Vancouver?
Urbane hipster Vancouver is just getting Uber now.
I know, it's shocking to me too.
While other parts of North America have had access to Uber and Lyft for upwards of 11 years, only now is ride-sharing becoming a thing in Vancouver after a years-long battle to bring the services to the lower mainland.
And when I say years-long battle, I'm not even remotely kidding.
The city and the government has done everything they can to keep Uber out.
The Liberals and the NDP both promised to bring ride-sharing to British Columbia in 2017.
And three years later, finally, just finally now, some regions are getting access.
But the roadblocks thrown up by politicians to protect the taxi lobby have been absolutely transparent and outrageous.
For example, when Uber first tried to enter the Vancouver market, the Passenger Transportation Board enforced the rule that required the company to charge at least $75 per ride, just like a limousine.
And now that Uber and Lyft have been operating for a few weeks in Metro Vancouver, drivers are being kept out of the market because of onerous licensing requirements that almost nowhere else has that requires them to have a class 4 license, the same one ambulance drivers have.
But we can explain this protectionism on behalf of the taxi lobby by the NDP government quite easily.
There's a BC NDP MLA on the legislative ride hailing committee who has a dad with a taxi license, yet this person never stepped down from the committee making the rules to keep Uber and Lyft out.
It's unbelievable, but it's perfectly NDP.
And before that, a so-called ride-sharing company called Cater fulfilled the NDP promises to bring ride-sharing to the lower mainland, except Cater was just taxis using a ride-hailing app with 20% of the profits from the company going directly back to the taxi industry.
What a scam!
And Cater eventually failed because people don't want taxi monopolies anymore, they want competition and fairness.
Now, I don't often take Ubers, I don't often take taxis, but I do care about free markets and competition and the government not picking favorites.
And that's why I think you can judge the corruption of a city or a government by how they treat Uber or Lyft.
And that's why today I have someone on the show who has been trying to bring competition to the marketplace for British Columbia consumers for years and who is working to remove these ridiculous regulations that are keeping Uber drivers out of the British Columbia market.
So joining me now from his home in British Columbia is Luis Sandoval of Stranded, B.C. Joining me now is Luis Sandoval.
He is the campaign director of Stranded BC.
I know it's shocking probably to a lot of you at home that British Columbia did not have Uber or Lyft until just very recently.
And Luis and his group, Stranded BC, played a very big role in holding the politicians to account for their promises to bring ride-sharing apps to British Columbia.
Luis, thanks for joining me.
Why don't you give us a little background about who you are?
What is Stranded BC and how you came to be involved in all of this?
Hi, everybody.
My name is Luis Andoval, and I'm the campaign manager of Stranded BC.
Organization resulted as an outcome of frustration.
As you mentioned previously, we were waiting for 11 years to enjoy this kind of services.
Finally, we have them, mainly in Vancouver.
And our main purpose is to create and educate about the ongoing ride-hailing issues that are going in the province.
Thanks God, finally, we have Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing companies operating in the province.
But now we are oriented to get rid of this unnecessary commercial class for license, which denies the opportunity for other people to drive for these companies and at the same time limits the availability of these services in other parts of British Columbia.
Now, I'm not someone who frequently takes cabs or public transportation.
I live on a farm, so I need to have my car with me just to get to town to the places where you might take a cab.
But what are some of the problems that have been created, I guess, in British Columbia by not having these services that we seem to take for granted in the rest of the country?
We take for granted that we'll be able to access Uber or Lyft when we need them wherever we are.
But that hasn't always been the case in British Columbia.
And what are some of the problems created by not having access to this?
First of all, there are a couple of problems that we need to consider.
75% of the people who live in Metro Vancouver, they live in the suburbs.
With this class 4 commercial license, it takes a long time to get it.
It could be from two months till four, five, or even six months where you need to present a knowledge test, you need to do a driver's test, you need to pay a fee of 500 till 2,000 Canadian dollars, where basically in the moment we don't have the enough supply of drivers.
which limits the availability of these services.
I mean, Metro Vancouver is not only the downtown area, Metro Vancouver, it includes Burnaby, it includes Surrey, Richmond, Abbotsford, or other cities which are part of Metro Vancouver.
Now, you've mentioned the Class 4 licensing for Uber and Lyft drivers.
I don't know exactly what that means in British Columbia, but I'm sure it's similar to what a Class IV license means in Alberta, and that's more along the lines of like ambulance drivers and larger commercial vehicle drivers.
In the rest of the country, do they have, and I guess in North America, is there this bizarre requirement that you have in British Columbia to have Uber and Lyft drivers have an ambulance license or does everybody else just have a Class 5?
In Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, they allow drivers to drive with the Class 5, which is their regular one.
In most of the United States jurisdictions, it's also the same.
I will tell you something which is quite interesting because before Uber and Lyft started operating in Metro Vancouver in March 2019, there was a right-hand committee which was confirmed by members of the NDP, the Liberals, and the Greens.
These people, these policymakers, they made some suggestions to the Transportation Minister and the Passenger Transportation Board to allow people to drive with a Class 5 license.
They were suggesting that they could drive with a Class V license and they should take a special course designed for right-handing drivers.
But as you previously mentioned, this Class 4, you need to read that 280 pages manual, which contains information about how to drive ambulances, how to drive trucks, which is basically unnecessary.
It's basically unnecessary.
Also, another thing that is important to consider is that, according to the BC Chamber of Commerce, 91% of Lyft drivers, they are driving part-time, which means that most of the people who drive for these companies is because they are basically trying to make an extra income and not having as a full-time job.
Yeah, that's a great point.
On the outside looking into Vancouver, it is obscenely expensive to live there.
I don't know how people pay for a house and food, let alone afford a car in British Columbia.
So by having this peculiar class four requirement, it's keeping a lot of people who could use the part-time work out of the marketplace because they don't need a class four.
They don't have a class four, and why would they spend the extra money to pursue a class four?
So, it's this requirement is doing two things: it's keeping drivers out of the market, and by doing that, it's stopping jobs from being created, but it's also keeping availability away from the people who actually need it.
Because generally, Uber and Lyft is they're much cheaper than the regular old archaic taxi system.
So, it's costing people jobs and costing commuters money and convenience.
Why did they do this?
Why do you think they did this?
They added this thing in that nobody else really has.
Is it to protect the taxi union while keeping their campaign promises to bring Uber and Lyft?
I don't understand this.
Well, the excuse that they say at the beginning, it was that this regulation was made because of people's safety.
But I believe that that is not people's safety, it's taxi lobby safety.
We need to acknowledge that.
And I will tell you another interesting fact in 2016 and 2017, some statistics were released where it was demonstrated that the difference of crash rates between class four and class five drivers, license holders, it was just 1% of difference.
This makes me think that this is basically an unnecessary restriction, again, just to protect the taxi lobbies.
Let's now take a look at some of the problems with the transportation board that is deciding these things for, I guess, private entrepreneurs, because that's really what an Uber and Lyft driver is.
Lack Of Entrepreneurial Experience00:06:37
It doesn't sound like any of them have any experience or very much experience being an entrepreneur.
Most of them are just government cronies enjoying patronage appointments.
I mean, Catherine Reed, the chair of the Passenger Transportation Board, if I'm reading this correctly, she has a long history of serving in government, serving as the deputy minister in positions in the BC government.
She was the chief economist for the Cayman Islands government, as well as Yukon's public service commissioner.
I don't know what any of that has to do with permitting Uber and Lyft drivers to drive people safely the way they are in the rest of the country.
There is something that I want to make clear.
You were mentioning about the chair of the board, Katherine Reed.
Yes.
She was nominated by the NDP after John Horgens got elected.
The question is: how can we prove that they are independent at all from the government if she was nominated by the NDP?
And as you mentioned previously, her background is not related with this kind of decisions.
And she's not the only one.
Also, the other members of the PTB, if you analyze their backgrounds, they have nothing to do with entrepreneurs or these kind of policies which affects the ride-sharing legislation.
Yeah, there's another member on the board named William Bell, and he looks like he was put there just to protect the taxi lobby.
He joined the current board in 2008 or joined the board in February 2008, but his current one-year term expires June 30th, 2020, so he's been renewed by the NDP a bunch of times.
But he was the member of the board that in 2012 stifled Uber's low-key entry into the Vancouver market by enforcing rules that required Uber to charge at least $75 per ride as though they were limousines.
So they, I mean, it's really crazy.
Like, tell me that's not designed to keep people from jumping in an Uber when they make them charge a limousine-like rides.
It's crazy.
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
These people who are the policymakers, they are not thinking about other people's needs.
And as we previously discussed, this is just measures that they are taking to protect the taxi lobby.
Now, Stranded BC, even though you finally, after 11 years of Uber and Lyft being available in the rest of North America, you finally have Uber and Lyft in British Columbia.
But your work isn't done because I guess you guys have a petition to get rid of that class four licensing restriction?
Yes.
In fact, we are not done till we make it sure that this class IV license will be removed.
And therefore, we want to bring the opportunity for other people to be able to drive for these companies.
But the most important is that we want to expand these services through all British Columbia, not just only Vancouver, because Vancouver is not busy.
British Columbia has other places which need these services.
And how do people find out about the work you're doing at Stranded BC and how do they support you?
What's the best way to get information on what you're doing?
Please visit our website, strandedbc.ca, and also you can follow us in our social media platforms, basically Twitter and Facebook, where we are constantly posting content and we are keeping updated people regarding the last ride-sharing news.
And please support us.
Please support us and let's make this happen.
Yeah, I can't recommend the website enough.
It really has basically an encyclopedia of what has happened to keep Uber and Lyft out and protect the taxi lobby.
And yeah, it's updated regularly with all the breaking news about all the new ride-sharing companies that are being approved or at least fighting to be approved.
So viewers at home, please do take a look at Stranded BC's website.
Luis, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show.
And please let us know if we can have you back when something else breaks in the news with regard to ride-sharing in British Columbia.
Thanks for inviting me to your show.
And of course, I will be more than welcome.
Thanks, Luis.
Thanks.
like I said from the beginning I don't actually use uber and lyft all that often maybe when I'm traveling but I do care about job creation and I do care about free markets And I do think that competition makes everything and everybody better.
And that's why I'm pro-Uber and pro-Lyft as an option.
for commuters in cities.
If you don't like them, don't take them.
It's really all that simple.
And I think it's absolutely appalling that politicians in the NDP would use their role on a ride-sharing committee to protect the value of their father's taxi license.
It doesn't matter what side of the Rockies they're on, really.
The NDP are the same all over, aren't they?
Protecting big, powerful union interests while hurting the working man they claim to advocate for.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.