The Premier says British Columbians should still prepare for ride-hailing within a reasonable time-frame.

John Horgan says the province remains committed to having fair ride-hailing by Christmas.

“It’s part of popular culture. You watch a program on television, they talk about ‘getting an Uber’ so I think ride hailing is going to be here as quickly as we can get it here, but we wanted to make sure that this was a transparent process.”

He was responding after a judicial review of the rules launched by the Vancouver Taxi Association appears to have delayed the process even more.

“Had there been more work done in the five years between 2012 when Uber and Lyft made represenattions to the provincial government, we might not have had the long consultation process that we have been doing here in BC. But we wanted to make sure that it’s fair to the existing industry. We want to make sure that it’s safe for the travelling public.”

The B.C. government had initially promised that the Passenger Transportation Board would begin reviewing applications at the end of September and that ride-hailing would be in place by the end of this year.