Green light for Uber is discrimination against East Indian cabbies, MLA charges

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This article was published 29/05/2017 (3021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Independent MLA Mohinder Saran has accused the Pallister government of discrimination against members of the overwhelmingly East Indian taxicab industry.

Saran said in the estimates hearings of Indigenous and Municipal relations Minister Eileen Clarke that the province will allow Uber to operate in the province as early as this year because it cares nothing about what happens to people in an industry that is 90 per cent East Indian.

Manitoba Hansard has published his comments.

“We don’t care. We can take care of farmers, we can take care of fishery people, but (taxi drivers are) only immigrants. Who cares about them?” Saran said. “You brought money from the other country; you spent over here; hell with you guys… we are going to make you again poor.

“This is totally unfair for the owners, especially, 90 per cent of people are East Indian; it’s discrimination on the East Indian and we will fight up to tooth and nail and we would not let it happen… does not matter if we have to go on hunger strike, we’ll do it. We will do everything possible.”

Clarke did not respond to Saran during the estimates hearing, but issued a statement Monday: “The accusations of racism are repugnant and undeserving of comment.”

Saran also said in estimates that East Indian drivers who work overnight often ask for fares in advance, and in response some passengers complain that they’ve been harassed.

“Sometimes people don’t want to pay the fare, they will accuse for harassment; they accuse for something else. So there’s no fairness there, no balance,” he said.

Unicity Taxi president Gurmail Mangat could not be reached Monday.

University of Winnipeg economics Prof. Manish Pandey said he and a group of friends were sitting in the public gallery at the legislature — there for the introduction of a private member’s bill proposing Indo-Manitoban heritage recognition — when Saran unleashed his allegations against the government, and were taken aback by the charges.

“I was there. All of us looked at each other and said, ‘This is not coming from racism,'” Pandey said. “I don’t think this would be racism — that would be going too far.”

Businessman Amenjeet Warraich, founder of the Punjab Cultural Centre, said he’s heard from taxi owners who’ve made substantial investments and now fear the arrival of Uber.

“I don’t believe it’s racism, but it’s going to hurt the community,” he said, adding that when provincial legislation is passed later this year to allow Uber into the market, there must be a fair and level playing field for everyone.

Saran is the three-term MLA for The Maples, who was a New Democrat until being thrown out of caucus several months ago after a second allegation of sexual harassment against staff became public.

Meanwhile, New Democrat Jim Maloway is pushing Clarke in the ongoing estimates hearing to compensate any taxi licence holder who is adversely affected by Uber.

Maloway cited as a precedent in the early 1970s the Schreyer NDP government compensating members of the insurance industry after the creation of Autopac. The Manitoba Historical Society describes that case in detail at http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/59/autopac.shtml.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca