Taxis line up in Toronto.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
The Toronto Port Authority scrambled Tuesday to quell controversy regarding an alleged bathroom ban for taxi drivers inside its Billy Bishop Airport transfer terminal.
Drivers waiting for fares outside the terminal said they've been barred from using the facilities for the past two weeks, after being blamed for a mess left in a first floor bathroom.
"I'm not a human being?" said Abdul Halim, who added that in his twenty years of driving taxis he had never seen anything like a toilet ban. "I'm bringing the customers, where am I going to go?"
Mr. Halim said a passenger or another member of the public could just as easily have been responsible for the mess.
"They don't have proof, then (they) blame us," he said. "It's kind of ... discrimination."
The Toronto Port Authority did not return telephone or e-mail requests to discuss the alleged ban, but it issued a news release Tuesday afternoon indicating plans to reopen the washroom to drivers.
"(The) washroom is currently under repair and is expected to reopen in approximately one week," read the release, which was issued jointly with iTaxiworkers, a group with a mandate to improve working conditions for cab drivers.
The release referenced an agreement with "members of the taxi industry" to monitor and help oversee the facilities, but it provided no further details.
In lieu of access to the terminal, the Port Authority has positioned two portable toilets at the end of the taxi lineup. A memo dated July 20 and posted on each of the doors reads: "These units are for the use of taxi drivers and will be emptied twice weekly. The cleanliness of these units will be the repsonsbility (sic) of the drivers and not the TPA."
Neither the memo nor the news release welcome drivers to use the public washroom facilities that are located on the second floor of the terminal.
Spokespersons for airports in Hamilton, Waterloo and Ottawa said it was the only time they'd heard of such a bathroom ban, and according to Toronto taxi drivers, it was a city first.
Asafo Addai, a driver who identified himself as a "taxi activist," said the ban is "maligning a group of people."
"There's no basis for it. No justification," said Mr. Addai, who has driven taxis since 1989.
"They need to be cleaning the washroom whenever it's needed ... not excluding people."