Newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world. They reflect the deeds and the pursuits of diverse peoples and kindreds. They both reflect them and make them known. — Baha'u'llah
To offer your two cents worth on the subject read The Livery Transportation Service bulletin below.
To make democracy work it’s critical that all citizens participate in all ongoing public debates. Apathy means enslavement.
Livery Transport Services – Meter Rate Engagement
BULLETIN #007
Meter Rate Discussions
2022 March 21
The City of Calgary is looking for feedback on what improvements can be made to support taxi drivers and ensure safety, service quality and consumer protection for all livery participants.
Livery Transport Services is holding in-person meetings with taxi drivers (at the LTS office) to discuss a possible taxi meter rate increase. If you would like to attend a session, please send an email to LTSEngagement@caIgary.ca and an appointment will be arranged.
A translated version is available in the following languages:
Before covid vaccinations became available, truckers, like soldiers in wartime, took the calculated risk of infection by transporting vital goods and food across the country and stateside. Many truckers were casualties throughout 2020, and as such are our heroes.
As Justin Trudeau is undoubtedly aware, 90% of the truckers promptly got vaccinated as soon as possible. He is also aware that the remaining 10% who for one reason or another, chose to continue working with the calculated risk of an already abating chance of infection and giving it to others.
All the foregoing leads to the next question: Given that the freight transportation system already in place was working rather well, why in blazes did the prime minister find it necessary to force truckers loaded with Canadian bound goods from the U.S. into two weeks of isolation and thereby reducing available trucks and cutting their meager incomes in half.
In other words, both U.S and Canadian governments chose to cut a trucker’s already meager income in half if he should dare carry a load across the border.
Forced isolation was the spark that ignited the truckers’ revolt and the Freedom Convoys crossing North America and elsewhere. It is the product of a growing culture of elitism with society’s failing leadership of all political stripes.
For example, Ottawa’s cab drivers must cope with substantial broker’s fees and usurious insurance premiums notwithstanding the refusal of their brokers to allow their drivers to work. The City of Ottawa — the same city locked down by the Freedom Bear Hug convoy, responded to their concerns with their usual big yawn and empathy as they listen to truckers honk their horns.
To end the Ottawa standoff, all the prime minister had to do was follow the example of the 14 year old King Richard ll who in June 1381 met with the peasants who were far more dangerous than today’s truckers, face to face and listen to them voice their concerns and proposals as that young King had done 600 years ago. He even put in writing his acceptance of all the peasants’ proposals which are now in the British archives.
The establishment’s culture of elitism is the source of the current truckers’ uprising and that has got to change.
IS RACISM ALIVE AND WELL IN CALGARY? YOU BET IT IS: JUST ASK A CABBIE!
Anyone including the White Anglo-Saxon males can easily be a victim of racism: Just ask my dearly departed grandfather. Upon his arrival here in 1906 his employability was hampered by signs everywhere that read “Help Wanted: no Englishmen need apply”.
You might want to call that reverse discrimination—a common misnomer in face of the reality that there is no such thing as “reverse discrimination”. It is pure discrimination and racism no matter the victim’s ethnic background. It is still racism.
Flash forward three generations and there I am driving a cab in pursuit of a college education. After graduation, I began working in Alberta’s oilfields and quickly discovered an unbelievably shocking level of racism throughout Alberta.
I shocked at the incidence of racism everywhere, particularly in housing and employment. Compared to other provinces where I lived, Alberta landlords and employers were cherry picking the race of their choice with impunity, for unlike the rest of Canada, human rights laws were archaic and unenforced on a variety of political pretexts.
The taxi industry was brutal and stood out as the poster boy for racism anywhere in Canada. It was a regular occurrence for me to see customers at taxi stands leaning to check the skin color of a cab’s driver before hiring. They were not infrequently belligerent when I told such customers to take the first cab in the que.
I had my own taxi and as such, would hire drivers. I was then with Red Top Taxi a white man only company. Being a Baha’i I was not about to get racist in my hiring practices.
In 1984 I found myself in trouble with the company over my hiring a person of color. I stood my ground and went to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The commission told me that white persons could not complain on behalf of visible minorities and if my religion were an obstacle, I should work for another broker or start my own company.
In other words, it was obvious that the government of the day was unclear of the concept that members of the Ku Klux Klan were not qualified as intake officers for the commission.
Both Calgary’s taxi brokers and local politicians were brazenly racist to the extreme. One manager said “I’m not prejudiced, I simply hate their guts” while a city councilor walked up to a group of company managers in my presence and blurted “You boys don’t need to worry, we’ll (city council) take care of those turban heads for you.” It was obvious where council’s in camera debates were heading.
It was clearly obvious that cab drivers—most of whom by the mid 1980’s were visible minorities, had to cope with politicians who were publicly champions of racial equality and in camera racists from the word go.
That generation of political leadership is now a thing of the past, for children of today are racially colorblind. Kids today are noticeably intolerant of racist attitudes. It clearly shows that extermination of racism begins with the education the suckling generation and the public in general.
Society can’t even begin to reconcile with oppressed minorities. Reconciliation simply doesn’t work. Instead embrace each other’s racial and cultural heritage, for true reconciliation is through embracement and not apologies for past wrongs.
For example, why not instruct school boards to teach the First Nations language of the tribe where the school board is located and name a street or other landmark after DR PETER HENDERSON BRYCE —a champion of native rights.
