While the Premier says it won’t be a failure if ride-hailing isn’t in the province by Christmas, the MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson disagrees.

Peter Milobar, who sat on an all-party ride hailing committee, says there is no chance we’ll see ride hailing vehicles on the roads this month.

“The Premier promised that we would have ride hailing by Christmas 2017. He promised it by Christmas of 2018, and he was adamant that it would be Christmas of 2019. Every time those dates come and go, there is so other excuse,” he said.

“Now I heard him saying, ‘we’ll it’s a complicated process.’ Come on. It’s not that complicated. The rules and everything have been laid out now for several months.”

Milobar says the government keeps indicating that ride hailing is a top priority, but so far he says it’s been all reports and no action.

“It was a massive rush the first year we did it” he recalled, of his time on the committee. “We had to meet in January so we could have a report ready by mid-February. We jumped forward a whole year and suddenly the same committee has to meet again in the same timeline, to rush a second report forward to the Transportation Minister.”

“That was a year ago now, that that report came out basically, and still no action on it.”

He says the delays mean ordinary British Columbians are caught in the middle, with no new options to get around.

“There has been zero modernization of the taxi industry either so you know I feel for the taxi operators. They have a government that’s trying to keep the taxi industry struck in the 1950’s regulations,” Milobar said.

“They’re trying to figure out how to implement a modern ride hailing technology, and given them a totally different set of rules to operate under.”

Premier John Horgan says 20 companies have applied to operate in B.C., and he says the Passenger Transportation Board is processing those applications. At least eight of those companies have applied to operate in the Kamloops area.