New technologies, old laws – Le Journal de Montreal

Let’s say you sell lemonade.

Let’s say you sell lemonade.

You must purchase a permit from the city, rent a table to inspect your product, follow a series of laws and regulations, etc.

Meanwhile, in front of your neighbor, which also sells lemonade, has a right pass that allows it to escape any regulation.

You would say that it is unfair competition, right?

This is exactly what happens in the taxi industry.

A taxi license cost an arm and head.

On kijiji, you can buy a taxi permit for Longueuil and Brossard for $ 150,000.

To drive a taxi, you must obtain a special permit (Class 4C), participate in a game if you want to serve the airport, etc.

So if you’re a driver for UberX, you do not need to comply with these regulations.

You use your personal car, and bingo! you can make a living by transporting clients from one point to another in the city.

No wonder the taxi drivers are angry

Especially as the Prime Minister himself seems to say he can not do anything …

“It’s like asking me to go in the river and stop the flow,” said he said.

The world of television is facing a similar problem with Netflix. While Canadian broadcasting companies must meet a series of regulations, including the famous Canadian content quota, the US company (which now distributes original content) is not subject to the CRTC and is not obliged to pay any money to the Canadian state.

It’s as if there was a race, and that allowed some participants to steroids!

obsolete regulations

Prime Minister Couillard is right: we can do nothing against new technologies

You can not “disinvent” Netflix or UberX, like. we can not “disinvent» Internet.

The technologies exist and we must make do.

But why hold an entire regulatory system if it serves no purpose except to disadvantage some companies?

Or the world has to stop at a red light, or no one is forced to do so

You can not have an asymmetric regulation. Louis must have a permit for the taxi but not Johnny.

Louise must respect the CRTC, but not Lisa.

It does not make sense …

It’s like publication bans in trials mega.

The Canadian media may not make public certain sensitive information, but you only have to look at the foreign media to have them. What are these bans two speed?

It made sense before, now.

The new technologies are developing at breakneck speed, exponential.

The world in which your grandchildren grow up will have nothing to do with the one in which you grew up.

But we continue to impose rules dating back to the bygone days of having to consult microfilm the National Library to find a text published four weeks earlier!

Or we modernized the laws regulating certain industries, such as taxi and broadcasting. Or we make them jump!