Vaughn Palmer: Liberal attack on Eby over ICBC misfires
Credit to Author: Massey Padgham| Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 00:53:23 +0000
VICTORIA — When Attorney General David Eby got to his feet in the legislature Thursday afternoon, he admitted right up front that it was “obviously a difficult day.”
Earlier, the B.C. Supreme Court had ruled against ICBC’s effort to drive down legal costs by reining in the use of medical and other experts in auto insurance cases.
“Unconstitutional” said Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson. “Very disappointing,” said Eby, which was putting it mildly.
Eby, as minister for ICBC, was facing a hit of up to half a billion dollars in his effort to return company finances to the break-even point.
Plus Eby, as attorney-general, had experienced yet another reversal in the courts.
“Every time this attorney general steps onto the judicial ice, the other team scores,” as B.C. Liberal MLA Mike de Jong put it during question period. “He’s full of bravado in the pre-game interviews, but he’s got the worst plus-minus record in the entire league.”
Not bad.
But to continue the game metaphor, that shot from the former attorney-general and finance minister was the only one scored for the Opposition side.
Everything else in the highlights package from Thursday’s question period was in favour of Eby.
To switch metaphors, he was dealt a lemon by the courts, and proceeded to make lemonade at the expense of the Liberals.
From his first answer, it was apparent that he came into the house armed for a fight.
“Now I’ve been waiting for 2½ years for a question on ICBC from the Opposition,” said Eby. “So while it’s a difficult day in the court decision, I’m glad to stand and remind British Columbians.”
Remind them, that is, how since his appointment as ICBC minister in July 2017 he’s been trying to clean up the dumpster-fire financial mess left behind by the Liberals.
Eby began the pushback by quoting the Fraser Institute on how the Liberals had handled the troubled auto insurance company: “Faced with exploding costs, the previous B.C. government had a choice: contain the costs, take the unpopular decision to increase rates substantially, or enact large-scale reform of the basic auto insurance system in the province. In the end, the government chose to do nothing.”
He swatted de Jong with a mixture of scorn and sarcasm.
“Gosh, I wonder how we got here,” said Eby. “If only there were some way to know. If only there had been some way to predict.”
Of course there was. Eby was holding the evidence in his hands — a report commissioned by the Liberals themselves and censored for public consumption to remove all traces of the emerging financial crisis at ICBC.
“They knew in 2014 that ICBC was in trouble. They commissioned a report to advise them how to fix the problem. The report was released in 2015, but seven pages were missing,” said Eby, milking the suspense.
“Do you know what the pages said? They said: ICBC is in trouble. You need to fix the system. If you don’t, you’re going to be losing a lot of money.”
Except de Jong, as finance minister in the last government, had squelched the report, according to Eby. “We lost $2.3 billion because of his decision.”
De Jong was mere collateral damage in the exchange. Eby’s main target was another Liberal MLA sitting silent on the Opposition front bench — Todd Stone, minister for ICBC in the last government.
Stone presided over such a debacle of fiscal neglect at ICBC that the Liberals dare not let him speak on the matter.
Eby, in a singularly coarse but effective jest, said he “didn’t have the stones to stand up today to ask a question about ICBC.”
MLAs are not supposed to name each other in the house, but Eby found a way to do it, with an artful double entendre. It’s a pity that Todd’s last name wasn’t “Ball.”
Eby hit the hapless Stone with an extraordinary accusation — that during a speech to the Automotive Retailers Association (ARA) in 2015, he’d proposed turning over to them an ICBC-owned repair and training facility “worth literally millions of dollars.”
The offer was initially greeted with disbelief, according to Eby’s account of the speech in Kelowna.
“Everybody laughed, because it was funny. Obviously, the minister wouldn’t give away a multi-million-dollar building from an insurance corporation that was losing money. But in fact, he was.”
Only later was the proposal blocked because of legal complications, according to Eby.
Incredible? Yes. But to back up the accusation, the New Democrats later distributed a full transcript of the Stone speech including the following quote: “I am pleased to announce I have directed ICBC to transfer their training facility from their ownership and control to the ownership and control of the ARA.”
All this and more was delivered by Eby to a swelling chorus of Opposition heckling that was over-the-top even by the standards of the B.C. legislature.
Even watching on the Hansard channel, one could hear that the attorney-general was hitting sore spot after sore spot from the fury he provoked from the other side.
The Liberals believe that given recent setbacks in court and punishing rates for inexperienced drivers, ICBC will eventually work as an issue in their favour.
Perhaps. But for now, their record of neglect and incompetence is more of an embarrassment than anything the New Democrats have done with the troubled auto insurance company.
vpalmer@postmedia.com