Report ordered on whether Halifax council should be in charge of taxi licences

Halifax regional council has ordered a staff report on whether itshould be deciding who gets to drive a taxi followingcontroversy over the acquittalof a cabbie charged withsexual assault.

"It was extremely important. We have to restore faith in the taxi system in HRM. Is it an admission the system is broken? No. Is it an opportunity to explore how we can do things better? Absolutely," said Coun. Lisa Blackburn.

While council debated the motion, there wasgrowingprotest outside city hall about the recent acquittal of former Halifax taxi driver Bassam Al-Rawi.

He was found not guilty of sexually assaulting an intoxicatedfemale passenger who was found unconscious in his cab in May 2015. In giving hisdecision, Judge Gregory Lenehan said"clearly a drunkcan consent."

• TRANSCRIPT: Read the full decision from judge who said 'clearly a drunk can consent'

Upholding public safety

"We have to stop treating taxi licences as a right and remember that this is a privilege to drive a cab in this town and not a right," Blackburn said.

Ahead of the meeting, Halifax's mayor saidhe waseager to debate the issue.

"We need to uphold the safety of citizens and as the mayor and also the father of a young woman who takes cabs in Halifax we hold people to a higher standard and we should," Mayor Mike Savage told CBC News.

In August 2015, the councillorson a municipalappeals committee reinstated the taxi licence ofBassamAl-Rawi, who was charged with sexually assaulting a passenger.

Al-Rawi's licence had been suspended by the city's taxi licensing officeafterhis arrest in May 2015, but he appealed thedecision.

The councillorson the appeals committeedetermined he should get his licence back as long as heonly drove between 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and he had a camera installed in his vehicle.

But Al-Rawi wasunable to provide the municipality with proof a cab company would hire him orregister as an independent cab driver, and he wasn't able to drive a cab. His licence was sent into a non-operational state in September 2015.

Al-Rawi was acquitted last week in Halifax provincial court, but the judge's decision thatthe passenger could have consented to sexual activitysparked an uproar.

The female 26-year-old passenger was intoxicated and was found unconscious and partially naked in the taxi by the police officer who arrested Al-Rawi.

"Personally I would like to see any cab driver that is charged with a violent criminal offence while on duty as a driver have his license suspended with no chance of appeal until the outcome of that criminal case," saidBlackburn.

Better handled by UARB?

Savage and Blackburnsuggested a body like Nova Scotia's Utility and Review Board may be better at making decisionson taxi licensing.

"I've long felt and expressed last year that it's probably not fair to putcouncillorsin the position on the appeals committee of making decisions of this magnitude," Savage said.

"It's obviously not all of our decision, but if the province and the UARB do not think it's their call then how do we improve the system from our point of view?"

He said while the municipalappeals committee made up of six councillors have made good decisions in the past, he said it made the wrong decision in deciding to reinstate Al-Rawi's taxilicence.

"I think that the information they had should have been stronger," Savage said.

"For the appeals committee, there's a big difference between somebody who doesn't cut the grass for a couple of months and somebody who puts the safety of citizens in question."

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