By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban
Quebec taxpayers are on the hook after a Superior Court judge ruled the government must pay almost $220 million to more than 6,000 taxi drivers in a class action lawsuit stemming from the 2019 law that deregulated the industry and destroyed the value of their costly permits.
The award of $143 million plus interest is in addition to an earlier compensation package paid by the province of some $800 million for permit holders who saw their investments in licenses lose all their value when the scheme was abolished and companies like Uber entered the market.
Justice Silvana Conte ruled that the government’s pilot project with Uber and subsequent legislation served as “disguised expropriation” without adequately compensating license holders, many of whom had invested large sums and were banking on the assets for retirement income.
Retired driver Louis Mason told The Suburban he is still out “tens of thousands” and that’s if “the government does not appeal…They used an unfair calculation from the start, so I don’t see them being fair now in reacting to the judgment. We’ll see.” He said his permit lost hundreds of thousands in value.
The amount awarded — to all holders of licenses as of October 2013 — is based on the 2016 license value, correcting what plaintiffs called an earlier imbalance that compensated based on how much individual cabbies had invested. n