Mayor Plante Did Not Hold Back In A Video Urging Quebec To Cap Delivery App Fees

In a video published to Twitter on January 15, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante urged the Quebec government to place a cap on high commission fees charged to restaurants using third-party delivery apps.

Plante cited Quebec's current COVID-19 lockdown rules, which force restaurant owners to operate solely through delivery during curfew hours in order to keep their businesses open.

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Since most delivery services have not heard the call from the Government of Quebec asking them to reduce their delivery costs, it is time to force them to do so.

Mayor Valérie Plante

"The problem is that delivery [commissions] cost them up to 30 and 35% of the order," she said.

Plante said the Quebec government has been in talks with third-party apps, like Uber Eats and Foodora, to convince them to voluntarily lower the cost of commissions.  

However, she said the food delivery companies refused.

"[We need to] require [delivery apps] to lower the costs, so it can be more profitable to the restauranters that [are] barely surviving," she said.

Geneviève Jutras, senior press officer for Mayor Plante, told MTL Blog the mayor hopes the provincial government will apply a 20% maximum commission cap on third-party delivery apps in the province.

In December, Ontario and British Columbia applied caps of 15% and 20%, respectively, on the amount of commission third-party apps can charge restaurants for delivery services.

"The governments of British Columbia and Ontario have done so, so we ask the government of Quebec to do the same," Jutras said.