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Originally Posted by rpvan
Would have been a lot more expensive to cut through mountains in order to make our highways into straight lines. The roads in BC don't follow straight lines due to the terrain and financial constraints. If they had... taxpayers would be paying a massive bill for decades.
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I logically understand this though I wonder how much the environmental and economic costs have been due to it. Also I really wonder whats the point of having "modern" technology if we can't make a road straight.
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Originally Posted by whatnext
David Eby outflanks the BC Liberals.
New bill to forbid government from taking ICBC profits
Attorney General David Eby said Monday that the bill, to be tabled in the house, will forbid the province from taking "excess optional capital" from ICBC and free the corporation to reinvest that money into lowering rates in future years.
ROB SHAW Updated: March 2, 2020
VICTORIA — New legislation this week will ban the provincial government from siphoning revenue out of the Insurance Corporation of B.C.
Attorney General David Eby said Monday that the bill will forbid the province from taking “excess optional capital” from ICBC and free the corporation to reinvest that money into lowering rates in future years.
“If those surpluses begin to accumulate, if this is something that ICBC experiences, this will continue the public pressure on ICBC and restrict future government’s ability to transfer that money anywhere else except to reduce rates or increase benefits,” said Eby...
https://vancouversun.com/news/politi...g-icbc-profits
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Its standard to use surpluses form crown corporations to cover government debts. The NDP is now using our "revenue-neutral" carbon tax and making it a for-profit tax. Crown corporations should not be investing surpluses into stocks/the market while taxes are raised to cover debts elsewhere.
The NDP has been looting ICBC in small amounts for decades since the social credit party days despite promising at the start that it would be "revenue-neutral". Also ICBC often made losses under the NDP which they hid before elections (in this case making a 22% increase after the election).
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HON. L. HANSON: There haven't been great payments to government out of ICBC.
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MR. SIHOTA: What I should have asked the minister is: will he give us an assurance that there will be no rate increase between 1989 and 1990, because that's when we're going to have the next election? We tracked four elections in the material, and it seems there's a repetitious trend here. The minister may say I'm making unfair allegations, but I must say to the minister that it's more than coincidence.
To look at it with a bit more depth, I want to deal with what the minister says. He says it's based on sound actuarial policies and user-pay. As the rate of claims goes up, so does the rate that individuals pay. I have the financial statement for the corporation here, and I wonder if the minister could explain what happened between 1985 and 1986. In 1986, which happened to be an election year, the corporation chose not to raise its rates. In fact, the average premium fell from $371 to $362, despite the fact that the number of accidents went up and despite the fact, if the minister cares to look.... The financial statement shows that in 1986 the corporation had an underwriting loss of $170 million and that it applied its surplus from previous years to keep those rates down. It's right here in the financial statement. It shows a profit in 1986 of $1 million compared to a profit in 1985 of $73 million.
It seems to me that 1985 was therefore an incredibly good year for the corporation in that it had built up a relatively high profit to cushion what would happen in 1986. If you look at the underwriting loss, which doubled from $84 million to $170 million, it's obvious that there was an increase in claims, but the government — or someone — chose to cushion it. So I think it lends credence to its being more than just coincidence. But the point has been made, and the minister has heard it. Like I say, we will see what happens in the next election. It's obvious what's happening. This year people are being gouged by 22 percent to build up a surplus in subsequent years.
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https://www.leg.bc.ca/documents-data...4p_02s_880422a