On the evening of August 27, the doors of the YWCA-Agvik women's shelter in Iqaluit will open for a gathering that could help change how women move through the city — and, in the words of the woman organizing it, help them "feel less alone." Rosalie DeMaio is calling the community together to begin building what she hopes will become a women-only taxi service, an idea born not of business plans or market analysis but of fear, frustration, and a determination that no one should have to barter for their own safety on the way home.
DeMaio's proposal grew out of experiences that many Iqaluit women will recognize. When she has taken taxis home, she says, drivers have sometimes "purposely go the wrong direction," forcing her to repeat, "Just take me home. I know this isn't the right way." Other drivers have greeted her with a kind of familiarity she never asked for. "I'm just waiting to get driven home, and they're like, 'Hey, baby girl, how are you?' And I'm like, 'No, don't, don't talk to me like that,'" she recalled. She also says that when she has declined a driver's invitation to get in, some have followed her by driving in reverse.
For DeMaio, the stakes are deeply personal. "I'm like the main demographic for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women," she said. "So then I was thinking, how can we make our community safer?" In February, DeMaio applied for funding to start a women-only taxi service for Iqaluit.
What she is proposing is not necessarily a single fleet of cabs, but a web of alternatives. Among the ideas she has floated are sharing a car for a day or two, letting someone else borrow a vehicle to get to places, and organizing weekly grocery runs to different stores. She imagines a non-profit model — "I don't really care about the money, personally," she said — and a service that charges by trip rather than by passenger. She has suggested a possible name: "Woman-to-go."
The agenda for the August 27 meeting is ambitious. Attendees, of whom she expects up to 30, will try to figure out what women actually want from a taxi company. They'll discuss how to obtain a licence from the City of Iqaluit, how to build a smartphone app through Makerspace, and crucially, where the money will come from. DeMaio has floated the possibility of support from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. or the Qikiqtani Inuit Association.
For the taxi companies that already operate in Iqaluit, the meeting is a reminder of an issue that has simmered for years. Caribou Cabs, the territory's largest taxi service, acknowledged that it has received complaints against some of its drivers for inappropriate advances. The company said its taxis are equipped with interior cameras to record interactions between drivers and passengers, and that it has suspended or terminated driver sponsorships for similar reasons in the past. "We believe that cameras protect both the customer and driver and that is why footage is available in each of our vehicles," the company said. It will take immediate disciplinary action when a complaint is received, including suspension or termination of sponsorship. Suspended drivers, it said, receive customer service, cultural awareness, and ethical conduct training to regain access to their sponsorship. Drivers are told that their job is not a place to seek a romantic relationship: "Do not ask customers for their phone number or ask them for a date, or if they are single. Always be professional, respectful and courteous."
That risk — that women might avoid taxis entirely, or take risks to avoid them — is exactly what DeMaio says she wants to address. She already drives her friends around town, she said, because she wants them to be safe, and she hopes to do the same for other women in Iqaluit. She also expressed sympathy for cab drivers working without a fixed wage, earning a commission per ride. "The cab drivers, they don't have like a fixed wage, so they have to really speed around town just to hope to get even with their pay. It just doesn't seem fair to the cab drivers or fair to us," she said.
For DeMaio, the meeting on August 27 is about more than transportation. "I just hope people will feel less alone, and hopefully we'll build a stronger sense of community and well-being for the other people in town," she said. Her hope is that the meeting becomes a first step toward a service shaped by the women who need it most. At the YWCA-Agvik shelter, the ball will begin to roll.