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It might have been a little tough to get a taxi in downtown Montreal on Thursday morning, as hundreds of cabbies banded together to stage a slow-moving protest through the streets.

The cabbies are angry that the province isn’t doing more to protect their industry from ride-sharing services such as Uber.

They started their protest at 10 a.m. near the Montreal Casino, moved down Cité du Havre and into downtown Montreal, stopping first outside Transport minister Robert Poëti’s downtown Montreal office on René-Lévesque and University, and then moving down René-Lévesque east to the CBC building.

They rolled along at barely 20 km/h — a symbolic gesture highlighting what the cabbies feel is the government’s slow movement toward dealing with Uber.

“If nothing is done, it’s just going to get worse and worse until nobody’s going to be able to pay their taxi permits,” one protester said. “The people that bought their taxi permits; they’re not going to be able to pay them.”

The taxi owners and drivers say the unregulated motorists who accept fares from passengers through Uber constitute unfair competition because they do not face the same licensing requirements and operating rules.

Source: CJAD NEWS