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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63206 Medium After My Father Goes to Bed

Read the following blog post from a website.

I drive for two ride-hail apps in Moncton on weekday evenings, after I have made dinner for my father and settled him for the night. Last February I slipped on ice outside a customer’s building, hurt my wrist and lost two weeks of fares, and no app even asked how I was. So I have followed the province’s debate on portable benefits for gig workers closely. I want some protection, but I chose this work because the hours bend around my father’s, and I won’t trade that away.

Talia Cairns, a labour lawyer, argues for a benefits account paid for by a small levy on every trip, which would follow a driver from one app to the next. “Drivers can keep choosing their shifts and still share the risk,” she said at a legislative hearing, citing a survey in which many drivers said they skip the dentist in months when their earnings drop. She also wants a minimum number of hours before anyone joins, so a student who drives two Saturdays a month is not placed in the plan meant for someone who drives full time. Quincy Brunelle, who handles policy for one of the big apps, warns that a heavy levy would push companies to trim surge pay and offer fewer rides in smaller cities. He would accept basic accident insurance paid by the apps, but he argues that a full employee-style package would wipe out the scheduling freedom that students and people caring for relatives rely on.

Shirin Dasgupta, a city councillor, sees a gap in enforcement: unless apps share trip data, she says, nobody can tell which drivers pass the hour threshold. She supports the account only if the province makes every app record drivers’ hours in one shared format before the levy begins. Chinedu Varela, who organizes drivers, wants an independent appeals desk for anyone an app wrongly labels as casual. He backs portable benefits, but he wants a one-year cost model published first, so drivers can see their take-home pay before anything is final.

Brunelle’s warning worried me, because Moncton is just the sort of city where rides would thin out first. Still, I don’t think a small levy would do what he fears, and basic accident insurance would not have covered much of my time off. I would start with Dasgupta’s shared records, add Varela’s appeals desk and then bring in Cairns’s account with her minimum hours. Flexibility is why I drive. A little security is why I would keep driving.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This blog post is about 1.
.

Who most clearly worries that a heavy levy could mean fewer rides in small cities? 2.
.

Talia Cairns’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Shirin Dasgupta’s condition call for? 4.
.

The blogger’s attitude toward Quincy Brunelle’s warning is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

Half the shoulders and backs I treat at our clinic belong to people who drive for apps, and almost none of them can afford to take a week off to heal. The labour lawyer is wise to insist that 6.
, since that one detail could decide whether the whole idea survives. The lawyer’s promise that drivers could 7.
 sounds almost too good, but I hope she is right. I would also back the organizer’s call for 8.
, which I had never heard anyone propose before this week. His idea of 9.
 is the part I plan to raise with my own member of the legislature. Your story about the time you 10.
 is the kind of thing I hear at work almost daily.

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