Mayor's office received cab company invitation after all

The Winnipeg mayor's office is offering a mea culpa of sorts for Brian Bowman's claim he received no invitation to meet with cab companies to discuss ride-hailing services in the city.

On Wednesday, dozens of cab drivers filled the gallery at city hall to send a message to Bowman about their desire to see a level playing field of regulations when companies such as Uber and Lyft are allowed to operate in Winnipeg.

• Cabbies park at Winnipeg city hall to send message to mayor on Uber-enabling regulations

At city hall, Bowman acknowledged he met at least once with an Uber official but said he had not received an invitation to meet from Winnipeg cab companies.

"I'm not aware of any request I've had for a meeting with Unicity or Duffy's. Any of them, if I get a request, I'll do my best to have that meeting," the mayor said during a lunch-hour break in the September meeting on Wednesday.

This led Michael Diamond of the Winnipeg Taxi Alliance, which represents Duffy's Taxi and Unicity, to send CBC News a copy of an invitation it sent to Bowman on Dec. 16, 2015.

At the time, the alliance was represented by Luc Lewandoski, who is now executive assistant to St. James-Brooklands-Weston Coun. Scott Gillingham.

"I am writing to request a time to meet with me and a few key members of the taxicab industry early in the new year. We can make ourselves available to your busy schedule if there is a particular time and day that works best," Lewandoski wrote Bowman via email.

"We are also in the process of meeting with all members of city council to address these issues together in the coming year."

On Thursday, the mayor's office said it located the letter and said the mayor was not aware of the invitation.

"We searched our files and have located the request you are referencing but the mayor does not recall seeing it," Bowman spokesperson Jeremy Davis said in a statement.

"The process in the mayor's office is to direct similar requests to the mayor's website for meetings, so that they can be logged and processed. There is no record of such a request on the mayor's website. We also found a letter from Michael Diamond sometime later which did not request a meeting nor did it reference a missed meeting.

"The mayor remains open to a meeting as he stated on the floor of council."

Diamond said in a statement he hopes to take the mayor up on his offer.