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Courier
saluted
for pedal power
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Veteran non-motorized messenger Wayne Scott honoured
Lobbied for food-as-fuel, against auto advertisements
Toronto Star, October. 9, 2003
By Neco Cockburn
In a light blue long-sleeved shirt, black tie, sunglasses and black
pants,
Wayne Scott blends in perfectly as he sits in the shade of office
towers
at the busy corner of York and Adelaide Sts.
That is, until you look down and see his black-and-blue pair of $170
high-tops,
not your average dress shoe.
"I wouldn't be able to do this without these shoes," he says, referring
to
the pavement pounding and pedal pushing he's done, on and off, in 22
years
as a non-motorized courier - one of hundreds in the city who run, walk
or
cycle to deliver packages.
The 52-year-old will be presented today with the Markus Cook Memorial
Award,
from the San Francisco-based International Federation of Bike Messenger
Associations.
It's given each year to an inspirational courier who empowers the
messenger
community, and will be handed over at noon as part of Messenger
Appreciation
Day celebrations at Yonge-Dundas Square.
Scott's award stems mainly from a 1998 Federal Court of Appeal victory
where
he won a case allowing non-motorized couriers to claim a tax deduction
of
$11 in food per day.
"I was spending all this money to make this pittance, and I realized
that
it was a cost of employment. I could not do what I was doing without
fuelling
my vehicle - which was my body - to do it," says Scott, 6 feet tall,
174
pounds (despite eating a ton), burned down from 189 pounds when he
wasn't
working.The food-as-fuel decision ended an 18-year battle and
overturned
a policy that regarded personally consumed food and drink as a personal
expense.
"We pissed away how many tax dollars for this obvious, intelligent,
very
basic concept that nobody could understand. For me, it's just another
example
that we live in a deluded society when it comes to the automobile," he
says.
The automobile. The scourge. We'll get to that in a minute.
"A lot of people didn't think he could get it done," says Derek
Chadbourne,
a former Toronto bike messenger and winner of last year's award.
Chadbourne was on the selection panel for this year's award and calls
Scott
a "go-getter."
Scott's animated and passionate, especially when it comes to the
environment
and improving courier standards. He sits on the city's pedestrian
committee
and in January put forward an idea that all city of Toronto deliveries
within
an appropriate distance and reasonably sized, must be made with a
non-motorized
courier.
The proposal is currently making its way through various departments.
"You take all these cars off the roads every day, you've got less
gridlock,
you've got less pollution, less noise
"It's all better for everybody involved."
Scott's also lobbied against auto ads, writing letters to Advertising
Standards
Canada complaining about the portrayal of couriers' driving as
dangerous.
A few years ago, when a General Motors ad suggested drivers should make
deliveries
themselves, rather than trusting them to "lunatic couriers," Scott
complained
that the ad was environmentally seditious.
"They were saying `take the non-motorized couriers and non-polluting
couriers,
don't give it to them, put another car on the road.'"
The ad was eventually pulled because it was deemed as demeaning to an
identifiable
group.
Scott doesn't drive, in case you wondered.
He refers to himself as a "walking anachronism."
He started work as a bike courier in the early `80s. In 1988, he was
hit
by a brick that fell from a construction site on College St., damaging
his
left shoulder. He eventually recovered and began delivering on foot.
In 1996, he slipped and fell on a wet metal grate on a ramp at Metro
Hall,
breaking his back - another story.
Couriers had to use a separate entrance in those days - an unsafe
entrance,
proven by his accident, Scott says. But that changed.
He helped to form an advocacy group, the Toronto Hoof&Cycle Courier
Coalition,
and got the city to change its policy.
He returned to the streets last year, although his injury slowed him a
bit.
He now works as a foot courier for The Messengers International,
choosing
them after researching the environmental friendliness of various
companies.
The company has a dress code, the reason for his shirt and tie.
His actions are well known, and even if younger couriers don't
recognize
his name, they know his impact.
Scott says he'll continue to fight for rights in an industry where the
workers
go without such perks as benefits or UI.
"It's slavery, there's no getting around it. Most of the people working
in
this industry are, when you take the expenses off, working for less
than
minimum wage.
"What I would like to see is a complete overhaul of the entire industry
...We've
signed the Kyoto agreement.
"We have the capability of moving a lot more freight than we
(currently)
do with non-motorized couriers."
And he's going to try to write those shoes off as a business expense.
"We'll see what they do," he jokes.
"It could be another 18-year fight."
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