MARK MACDONALD
BRITISH COLUMBIA – there is one thing that governments have proven they are adept at, it is creating a crisis, then providing a solution for it.
ICBC was created by the NDP under Premier Dave Barrett to, one supposes, provide equal and fair automotive insurance for British Columbians. What it has morphed into is a monopolistic, heavy-handed institution and a cash cow for the province. Little wonder that even the previous BC Liberal government refused to privatize auto insurance.
A recent Vancouver Sun article by Ian Mulgrew states that ICBC made profits of $1 billion in 2020 and $1.5 billion in $2021. That figure is expected to increase. It could have been substantially more if presumptive Premier-in-waiting David Eby, the minister in charge of ICBC (now it’s Mike Farnworth), had gotten his way when he announced significant changes in 2020. A former loather of no-fault insurance, Eby had suddenly fallen in love with it.
It was Eby’s responsibility to “fix” the problems at ICBC, which he claims to have inherited from the BC Liberals – even though the entire situation started with the NDP decades ago. He has now taken two runs at capping the costs that successful plaintiffs could recover from ICBC in personal injury suits. Both times, the BC Supreme Court has ruled the moves as unconstitutional.
Mulgrew quotes BC Supreme Court Justice Nathan Smith: “The thinly veiled purpose of this legislation is to improve the finances of ICBC by reducing the quantity of expert evidence in motor vehicle accident liability claims and to thus both reduce litigation costs and produce lower damage awards whether by way of settlement or at trial.”
Which, in street-level, regular people-speak, means a violation of basic civil rights.
Trial lawyers and law firms must be celebrating as defending clients in ICBC trials has become a lucrative business. Automotive accident victims should also be rejoicing, as they can, again, seek proper recourse for injuries that have become debilitating and life altering – instead of the relative pittance that ICBC’s own rules have been calling for.
Thankfully, the courts have slapped the NDP government again, in this case led by Eby. In other words, choose another route other than gouging clients/victims for solving any financial woes at ICBC.
How about opening up the market to competitors for ICBC – and include a government surcharge to private insurers who take their place? That would at least partially reduce any government revenue, while allowing competition – which always results in better, less expensive options.
This won’t happen, of course. The NDP created it, and they’re not about to eliminate a powerful government monopoly to the “dreaded private sector”. It would be a massive admittance of failure, something that will never happen. Especially with an ideologue like Eby at the controls.
But wait. With Eby, there’s more.
As the minister in charge of housing, Eby has been grousing about the increasing cost of residences and lack of affordable living spaces for, well, forever.
It’s an amazing failure of memory. Did Eby forget that in 2015 he brazenly blamed skyrocketing real estate prices on Asian buyers, paving the way for the introduction of extra taxation on Foreign Buyers? Complete with racist overtones.
No, that wasn’t the problem. It is lack of supply – a direct result of NDP policy implemented at the municipal level by anti-development NDP farm teams, and regulation hungry bureaucrats.
Remember when the NDP promised to build 114,000 units of affordable housing in electioneering gone by? Yet they have only opened 7,219 since 2017. Yes, you read that right: 7,219 – SIX PER CENT of what they promised. It is a staggeringly pitiful performance.
Eby, again, promised action, and as BC Housing Minister, fired its board of commissioners. He’s railed against local government, promising provincial intervention if prohibitive building guidelines and red tape that continue to create a shortage of housing aren’t dealt with.
Housing shortage is the problem, period. But will the NDP ever admit that their No Development Policies are at fault? Again, not a chance.
With John Horgan announcing he’ll be stepping down as Premier, paving the way for a leadership race that Eby has already presumptively won, excuse us if non-NDPers withhold their applause.
Eby is the ultimate NDP ideologue. He epitomizes what a socialist in a suit looks like, and his moves to this point are indicative of what BC’s business community should expect should he become Premier. Since the media has already crowned him, so let the coronation begin.
Horgan is apparently stepping down for health reasons, which is totally understandable. It is, however, concerning to see the media fawning over Horgan as a great Premier. Before the introduction of his very-own “John Whisperer” early in his tenure to tone down his well-known temper, Horgan was well known as a political bully, as he rag-dolled Christy Clark prior to his first, by-the-skin-of-his-teeth win. He was politically astute enough to make Bonnie Henry and Adrian Dix the faces of the Covid pandemic, thus avoiding the heat and scrutiny that other Premiers endured.
Maybe he was the best of a bad lot of NDP Premiers, but that’s it. He leaves in his wake numerous unsolved issues for someone else – Eby – to fix.
That’s hardly comforting, since it was Eby who helped create – or at least failed to solve – two of the biggest problems the next Premier will face.
Mark MacDonald is President of Communication Ink Media & Public Relations Ltd. and Author of the book “It Worked For Them, It Will Work For Me: The 8 Secrets of Small Business I Learned From Successful Friends”, which can be obtained by reaching him through: mark@communicationink.ca
