Toronto councillor wants new rules for ride-sharing after Uber drove away with kid
CBC
A Toronto city councillor plans to bring forward a motion Thursday recommending regulatory changes for ride-sharing companies in emergencies, after an Uber drove away with a 5-year-old girl last month.
CBC Toronto first reported on the incident earlier this week. The child's mother, Julia, said Uber representatives refused to help connect her or Toronto police with the driver, despite explaining the emergency situation. Within about an hour and a half, officers were able to find the young girl with the unwitting driver without assistance from Uber.
Coun. Mike Colle's motion is looking for companies like Uber and Lyft to take greater accountability to directly assist customers and police in emergency situations like this.
"We're going to ask them to basically alter the rules, or we may make changes to compel them to basically change their rules for emergency safety reasons," said Colle.
"This type of thing could happen to any of us … the police should be able to contact these drivers in case there's an emergency situation."
Colle's motion says the city's current regulatory framework doesn't provide any remedy to passengers in an emergency, nor any penalty for operators. The requested review would look at the current rules and recommend additional licensing requirements for vehicle-for-hire companies and drivers.
In a statement for the original story, an Uber spokesperson said the safety of everyone who uses the platform is the company's top priority.
The company said its support team followed Uber's standard protocols, which are designed to protect the privacy and safety of all users. Uber also said its team advised the rider to contact law enforcement and, when police reached out, the company shared its protocol for an expedited request. Once Uber received the request the company says it supported the solution.
Julia previously told CBC Toronto she's looking for the ride-sharing company to commit to changing its emergency response procedures so that others don't experience what she did if minors are left in an Uber. CBC is only using her first name to protect the identity of her daughter.
"I made it very clear, you can offer me $1 million. If there are no policy changes, I will not be accepting that, I need to see policy change here," Julia said.
"No one should have to go through what we went through."
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Hundreds of members of Sandy Lake First Nation have left the remote Oji-Cree community as a major wildfire burns nearby.
A new collaboration that allows local artists to temporarily take over empty buildings in Waterloo region aims to "cut the red tape" normally associated with renting space.
The Charlottetown Library Learning Centre has added another language section to its multilingual collection.
An ambitious new plan aims to redefine the relationship between caribou and people in Yukon's Southern Lakes region, including by allowing Indigenous youth an opportunity to hunt the animals for the first time in decades.
Helicopter pilots, heavy machinery operators and railway workers are some of the people on the front lines of the Manitoba wildfire fight.
Ontario appears to be months behind launching a mandatory review of the Greenbelt, and opposition politicians and environmentalists are asking for a wide-ranging and transparent study of the protected lands to preserve their future.
WARNING: This article references sexual assault, and may affect those who have experienced them or know someone affected by them.
Former military language and cultural advisers — who at times carried out some of the most difficult and dangerous assignments of Canada's war in Afghanistan — are now suing the federal government for discrimination over the alleged failure to properly train and take care of them following their service alongside combat troops, CBC News has learned.
The 336-kilometre trail, which stretches along the coast of much of the Avalon Peninsula, has 25 different paths that people can take.
An organization that represents commercial fishermen says it's steaming ahead with a lawsuit aiming to define the terms of a moderate livelihood fishery now that a Nova Scotia-based First Nation has dropped its own lawsuit against the federal government.
Daniel DeLong was a Grade 12 student at Riverview High School in 2011 when his environmental science teacher encouraged him to get involved in his community.
A construction worker who huddled with his crew inside a smoky shipping container as a northern Ontario wildfire encircled them said he's happy to be alive and back home with his family in Brandon, about 215 kilometres west of Winnipeg.
One week after residents of Air Ronge left the northern Saskatchewan community, fleeing wildfires and adhering to mandatory evacuation orders, the mayor says many of them still don't have a place to sleep.