Lyft posts first ever international growth into Toronto, Canada
Another Uber-like company is expanding globally. Lyft, which is one of the biggest competitors with Uber, has announced their plans to expand for the first time ever into another country other than the US: into Canada.
They announced this with a declaration that Lyft services would be introduced and rolled out within Canada's largest city, Toronto, across the month of December.
However, along with the introduction of Lyft to Canadian citizens comes some forms of controversy involving politics. You guessed it, Quebec's government might impose some forms of problems with the company. It wouldn't be a surprise to anybody.
Quebec's government has recently gotten into heated debates and arguments with Uber and Netflix; both companies threatening that the Quebec regulations on businesses were too extreme for them to deal with. Uber even set a deadline for the government to roll back their regulations on their employers; or they'd leave the province.
Uber had contested Quebec's decision to force all of their drivers to pass a 36 hour training course. However, the company got extremely angered majorly due to the fact that most of their drivers were part-time employees. There was no logical reasoning for why Uber drivers would take an entire week off their full-time jobs to work for Uber.
It was posted, by local Quebec and Ontario media, that 90% of Uber drivers would likely not participate in the training courses and would most likely ditch and quit the company.
Quebec's government also got into heated arguments with Netflix following the company's agreement with Ottawa that instead of paying corporate taxes, Netflix would invest $500 million into the Canadian film industry. Due to personal political debates and issues, Quebec debated the agreement until it forced Netflix to pay taxes in the province.
If Lyft makes their moves into Toronto, it's to be expected they'll end up moving into Canada's second biggest city; Montreal, of which is located in Quebec. Due to provincial laws and regulations that have caused numerous arguments; the city has been halted growth within the past numerous decades.
Lyft's expansion into Ontario, however, does not signify they will make any moves to enter Quebec officially. This mostly due to the strict provincial laws and regulations that wouldn't permit them to operate functionally: this being because their amounts of drivers would be limited to those who are able to take an entire week off their full-time jobs to complete the training or would have to be a full-time Lyft driver.
However, nevertheless, it's most probably they eventually will take the path to offering their great services to the people of Montreal and other Quebec cities as the Canadian city continues to reel from issues involving Uber.