BC Attorney General David Eby responded to Ernst and Young’s 203-page report on ICBC’s current state.
Eby says the company has been in crisis for the past few years and there are two main reasons for that.
“The BC Liberal government had been taking money out of ICBC in the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars and the second is that British Columbia had seen a spike in the number of accidents and incidents, which rose 23% since 2013,” says Eby.
Despite the rise in crashes, the NDP government is not in favour of photo radar.
“I think that one of the problems with photo radar is you’re unable, for example, to provide a speeding ticket to the particular driver that was driving the vehicle.”
The possibility of a no-fault system for auto insurance has also been squashed.
Eby says British Columbians could be in for a rude awakening if the situation isn’t dealt with soon.
“This crisis is so grave that there was a threat of rate increases of up to 30% if we don’t act to address these problems.”
The Attorney General is also of the opinion that the existing system fails to recognize good drivers for being less of a burden on the system and ignores the impact of bad drivers as well.
“What we can see right now is that losing more than $500 million in a single year is quite a serious crisis and that is why I will be all hands on deck to start to turn this ship around. It is a big ship and it will require the cooperation of the ICBC board and the folks of ICBC as well as British Columbians.”
ICBC released the full report on Monday.