­­­Several cabbies in the Halifax zone are threatening to stay home on a little strike of their own if Halifax regional council eases the district rules.

Council is meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss measures to ease the effects of the transit strike. One item involves opening up the borders between taxi zones to allow cabs from other areas of HRM to work in Halifax.

“We’re handling (the higher demand). There are no complaints,” said Al DesLaurier, the recently elected president of the Halifax Taxi Drivers Owners Association, which represents the 610 drivers in the Halifax zone.

DesLaurier dropped off a letter at city hall on Monday asking to be allowed to speak at the council meeting.

“I can prove to them today that even opening it up during a transit strike is going to hurt the people (outside of Halifax),” he said.

Flooding the market with cab drivers means the full-timers will drop out and part-timers take over, said DesLaurier, who started driving a cab in 1966. He said it will also hurt the smaller communities who would be left without taxi service when they pour into Halifax.

From Sunday night to Monday morning, DesLaurier said he received about 120 calls from his membership, many of them threatening to stay home.

“We don’t have a union, but basically they’re going to stay home and say, ‘Here you go, city, get those guys to do our work,’” he said.

Bedford Coun. Tim Outhit said the rezoning would be temporary, just like during the Canada Games last year.

“If they’re not willing to step up and loosen the rules a little to help residents during this tough time, well, that’s up to them. A lot of people feel they should be,” Outhit said.