Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies Inc[1] said on Tuesday it will stop operating in the Canadian province of Quebec next month, pulling out to avoid following tough new regulations announced last week.
Uber is withdrawing from Canada's second-most populous province as it also battles a decision to strip the company of its license to operate in London, the latest in a series of regulatory attacks on Uber as new Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi seeks to rebuild the company's image.
Uber's Quebec general manager, Jean-Nicolas Guillemette, said the company would cease operations in the province on October 14.
Uber employs more than 50 office workers in the province, where more than 10,000 drivers have worked for the company, he said.
The company left room to reverse its decision, calling on the government to reconsider regulations announced on Friday that tightened up the rules of a pilot project that had let Uber operate since October last year.
"We're asking the government to renew the pilot project and let's sit down and find a solution to this," Guillemette said.
A spokesman for Quebec's transport minister said the province would not budge on new rules requiring drivers to undergo 35 hours of training and to have their criminal background checks validated by Quebec police instead of third parties.
During the pilot, Uber drivers were ticketed for not identifying their vehicles, driving cars that were too old, and accepting rides hailed off the street, while some were also found to have criminal records, said Mathieu Gaudreault, spokesman for Laurent Lessard, Quebec's minister for transportation.
"We can negotiate with them, but not on the basis of those two things," Gaudreault said.
He said Uber had paid the province around CAD 7 million ($5.68 million)...