Iqaluit taxi fare hike passes one more hurdle

Iqaluit’s taxi review committee has voted to recommend to Iqaluit City Council that the basic taxi fare in Iqaluit be raised from $6 to $7. (FILE PHOTO)

Taxi companies in Iqaluit are one council vote away from getting their first cab fare increase in seven years after the city’s taxi review committee voted Oct. 9 to recommend a $1 raise to council.

The increase would raise the $6-per-head rate to $7, marking the first increase since 2007, even though the city’s taxi bylaw calls for a review of cab fares annually.

The city’s taxi committee, which passed a motion recommending the fare increase, along with a motion for the city to initiate a review of the taxi bylaw, held a public consultation meeting Oct. 9.

But only a handful of residents showed up to voice their opinions.

“There’s been nothing annual about this review,” Craig Dunphy, owner of Pai-Pa Taxis said during the public consultation.

“It’s been far too long.”

“I agree 110 per cent with the fare increase,” Iqalungmiut Kathy Hanson said, but added there are other taxi-related issues that need addressing.

Some of those issues, Hanson said, are allegations of taxi drivers smoking cigarettes or even marijuana inside their cars, dirty interiors and refusing to take passengers to Apex because it’s too far.

“Increase the rate, but provide a good service,” Hanson said. “Be happy when Kathy gets into your taxi.”

Wendy Ireland, who works with Nunavummi Disabilities Makinnasuaqtit Society, called in to the meeting by phone to voice her opposition to the fare increase.

Iqalungmiut who have disabilities live on modest incomes and may not be able to afford the increase, she said. Ireland also said that until the majority of cabs on the road are wheelchair-accessible, Iqaluit will not be a truly inclusive community.

Another resident, Damien Barnes, whose emailed comments to city staff were read by chief bylaw enforcement officer Kevin Sloboda, worried that elders wouldn’t be able to afford the increase in cab fares either.

But Dunphy pointed out that cab fares for elders are already reduced, at $5, and would not change with the proposed fare increase.

Council called for a public consultation on the cab fare increase after the city’s taxi committee, which last met Aug. 28, recommended the raise.

But the other issues raised by the public at the consultation prompted the taxi committee to pass another motion requesting councillors to direct Sloboda to review the taxi bylaw.

Coun. Terry Dobbins, vice-chair of the taxi committee, said this recommendation would most likely appear on the agenda for the Oct. 28 council meeting.

For Chahid Zeidan, who has worked in the taxi industry for two decades — currently as a dispatcher in Iqaluit — the raise is long overdue.

“I’ve never heard of a city that stays seven years without a meter increase,” he said at the meeting.