Transformations in the Ottawa Taxi Industry: A Sociological Perspective

Abstract

This thesis sets out to explore the recent emergence and legalization of private transportation companies within Ottawa. In doing so it seeks to understand some of the social, economic, and governmental factors that have worked to enable these companies to successfully emerge within the previously closed taxi market, and explores some of the potential social consequences that the legalization of private transportation companies will have for labourers, residents, and governing structures within Ottawa and Canada more generally.It begins with an overview of the history of taxi legislation within most major Canadian cities, where I compare and contrast technical differences between the taxi industry and private transportation companies. This is then followed by a critical investigation into the social discourses that predominantly support this transformation, beginning with an analysis of existing social discourses about the relationship between technology and social progress, followed by an analysis of discourses about worker and consumer autonomy. Lastly, this thesis explores the ways in which the emergence of private transportation companies asks crucial questions about the limits of our current governing structures, pointing to new ways in which companies are able to speak to workers and consumers beyond government through the use of new mobile technologies.