Hundreds of taxi drivers ground traffic to a halt in parts of downtown Montreal Thursday as they drove in a slow-moving convoy to protest online competition.

The drivers want the city of Montreal and the provincial government to put a stop to a new car sharing service.

They say the government is slow to act on the unfair competition coming from “UberX”, calling the ride-sharing app an illegal form of transportation.

To get their message across, hundreds of taxi drivers gathered at Cité du Havre at 10 a.m and slowly drove - at 20 km/h - through the streets of Montreal to the Transport Minister's office at the corner of Rene-Levesque Blvd. and University St.

Others went directly to Papineau Ave. and René Levesque Blvd.

The taxi drivers say the demonstration was to make a point about the lack of progress from the government to resolve the problem.

At issue is two services offered by Uber.

The first is a mobile app - called Uber - that allows customers to request taxi rides from their phone.

The second is a network of drivers - called UberX - that taxi drivers say circumvents the legal requirements necessary to chauffeur the public.

UberX rates are also cheaper than the amount dictated by the taxi bureau.

Anyone can sign up to be a driver with UberX and use their private vehicle to act like a taxi driver, receiving messages from an online dispatch system, with all payments handled through the app. No cash changes hands.

Cab driver Aki Vassilatos is tired of waiting for the Taxi Bureau to crack down on car-sharing services.

“We want to stop the illegal transportation. As simple as that,” says Vassilatos. “They just have to apply the rules. That’s all.”

Unlike the drivers in car-sharing services, cab drivers must pay thousands of dollars for a taxi license and go through mechanical inspections. Taxi drivers, like Ashkan Gorji, say that Uber is undercutting their jobs.

“If these people are allowed to come in, what is the definition of a taxi permit? Who’s going to work as a taxi driver?” says Gorji. “It’s going to be complete chaos. Everybody is going to do whatever they want. And we’re the ones who’s going to be paying all these fees for nothing.”

Executives from Uber met with provincial government officials in Dec. 2014, asking for permission to run their service.