Western Standard - Alberta's care first system — a repeat of 20 years ago？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my name is Leah Mushed. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard, and today we're going to talk again about the care first in auto insurance system, which is still predicted to be introduced in 2027.

00:00:12.120 And to talk about this with me, we have Mark McCourt, who is a personal injury lawyer at McCourt Law and has over 30 years of experience. So Mark, the first question I have for you is, there was a similar system in Alberta that was going to be introduced in 2003 to 2004. So could you tell us more about that and how your advocacy helped, like, stop it from being introduced?

00:00:39.760 Sure. So as you say, Leah, about 22 years ago, the Alberta government was looking at bringing in some auto insurance reforms at the behest of the very powerful auto insurance lobby back in 2003-2004.

00:00:58.840 The auto insurance industry was claiming to the Conservative government under Premier Ralph Klein at the time that they were barely making ends meet.

00:01:10.200 The auto insurance industry was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

00:01:13.120 And so Fringer Klein's finance minister, Pat Nelson, came up with a proposal that she put to the Conservative caucus that would have eliminated pain and suffering claims, well, capped them at about $2,500 to $4,000 for injuries, nothing short of catastrophic.

00:01:34.080 And so that was going to be put to a vote back in October of 2003.

00:01:39.760 And the day before that vote was going to be held in Conservative caucus, Alberta Conservative caucus, a Calgary Herald columnist by the name of Danielle Smith put out a column in the Calgary Herald saying,

00:01:54.720 my goodness, my goodness, if we, you know, if the Alberta government goes ahead with this sort of tort de form at the insistence of the powerful auto insurance lobby,

00:02:04.160 that would be unconservative, unconstitutional, unalbertant, unfair, and selling out Albertans to mollify a multi-billion dollar insurance industry.

00:02:19.640 And so thanks certainly in part to Danielle Smith's advocacy, the vote the very next day was held and Finance Minister Pat Nelson's auto insurance to form plan was defeated by one vote.

00:02:36.560 And Ralph Klein ordered his caucus to go back to the drawing board and they came up with a $4,000 cap on pain and suffering compensation for minor strains and sprains and whiplash injuries that heal relatively quickly, basically, within about 12 weeks.

00:02:54.040 Okay, interesting.

00:02:55.560 So you're talking about the, back in 2003 to 2004, you said that it was the insurance lobbyists that were the one pushing for this.

00:03:04.360 So, just so viewers know, is it the same insurance lobbyists now that are pushing for the same, well, it is not even a bill anymore, it's been passed and everything, but like, yeah, are they the same ones?

00:03:17.600 It is, it's the same insurance lobby, it's the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

00:03:23.280 The insurance lobbyist has long since moved on to better things.

00:03:29.140 Strangely, this old guy is still here fighting the good fight, but there's a new insurance lobbyist and another, you know, young, fresh-faced fellow who, by the name of Aaron Sutherland, who's shuttling his wisdom towards the UCP caucus now on behalf of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

00:03:51.960 So, the same insurance, the IBC, but it's a different fellow that is leading the charge.

00:03:58.900 Different guy.

00:03:59.660 Okay, that makes sense.

00:04:01.840 Well, then my next question would have to be, do you think the province keeps attempting to implement this type of system?

00:04:10.820 Like, why do you think that is?

00:04:13.720 Since they already had it tried to pass in 2003 to 2004, is it just because of the lobbyists?

00:04:20.480 Like, what else, or is there also something else that might be influencing?

00:04:24.180 Yeah.

00:04:25.180 Absolutely.

00:04:25.920 Leah, it is just because of the lobby, the insurance lobby.

00:04:29.840 So, the Insurance Bureau of Canada, their job is to try to convince governments, and in the province of Alberta, obviously the Alberta government, to reduce the rights of injured people to fair compensation from the insurance companies that insure reckless drivers.

00:04:51.260 And frankly, so that insurance, auto insurance companies can make a bunch more money.

00:04:58.380 And so, every time we see a new government elected in Alberta, we see the insurance lobby trot out their old arguments.

00:05:08.480 It's always the same arguments that we are having a really tough time making ends meet.

00:05:14.460 We are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and would government, would you pretty please protect us from the valid claims of innocent Albertans who've been hurt by reckless drivers?

00:05:28.640 And so, we saw that in 2003, 2004.

00:05:31.880 We saw that in 2015 when the Notley NDP government was brought in place.

00:05:37.820 Even the Notley NDP government brought in some mild reforms to the minor injury regulation back in about 2018.

00:05:46.320 And then in 2019, when Jason Kenney's UCP was elected, Jason Kenney's press secretary turned out to then become the president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

00:06:00.080 And the UCP's campaign chair for the 2019 election immediately became a lobbyist for the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

00:06:09.880 And so, interestingly though, even though Nick Koolsbergen, the former head of the UCP campaign, who became an IBC lobbyist, and Celeste Power, Jason Kenney's former press secretary, who became president of the IBC,

00:06:26.440 even though they were pressuring Premier Kenney and his finance minister at the time, Travis Taves, to bring in no-fault legislation, which the current Daniel Smith government euphemistically refers to as care first.

00:06:41.880 Even though these very powerful, well-connected people were lobbying the Kenney government to do that,

00:06:49.100 Travis Taves, who, thankfully for Albertans and for plaintiff counsel, possesses a triple-digit IQ, he wasn't buying what the insurance lobby was selling.

00:07:03.020 And he, despite a 500-plus page report that said, oh, you should definitely bring in no-fault, Travis, he said, no way, Jose, we're not going to do that.

00:07:13.080 And, of course, he's gone now.

00:07:16.140 And thanks, I'm sure the insurance lobby is very thankful that Nate Horner is now the finance minister, because I'm going to be honest, I don't think that he's the sharpest tool in the shed.

00:07:27.680 Okay, well, next question.

00:07:33.060 Okay, I also would be interested in knowing that 2003-2004, like, what are the, how similar are they, like, to the one that they want to introduce in 2027?

00:07:44.220 What are the similarities that you can, like, draw between the two?

00:07:47.040 Well, I can tell you that in 2004, in October of 2004, the Ralph Klein government brought in the minor injury regulation, which caps at, well, at the time, $4,000.

00:08:00.520 It's up to about $6,200 now with inflation, but it caps at a few thousand dollars.

00:08:07.900 Payments suffer in compensation for whiplash, injuries, strains, and sprains that heal relatively quickly.

00:08:14.820 And, you know, as I say, Ralph Klein's finance minister wanted something somewhat quite significantly different than that.

00:08:25.240 She wanted a cap on compensation for injuries that were nothing short of catastrophic.

00:08:30.080 We're talking about brain injuries, injuries just short of paraplegia, quadriplegia, injuries just short of third-degree burns, et cetera, et cetera.

00:08:42.020 And what Ralph Klein did is he said, well, let's see what my caucus, my conservative caucus thinks of that.

00:08:49.460 And he listened to his caucus.

00:08:51.360 Now, interestingly, by way of contrast, Danielle Smith asked her cabinet, what do you think of this no-fault plan,

00:09:01.000 this CARE, so-called CARE-first plan that Nate Horner's finance department is pushing at the insistence of the powerful insurance lobby?

00:09:10.240 And my understanding is that Danielle Smith's cabinet voted 13 to 11 against bringing in this CARE-first. 0.89

00:09:19.520 And Danielle Smith said basically close enough and is going ahead with this CARE-first,

00:09:26.220 despite the fact that most of her cabinet voted against it.

00:09:29.680 And so, you know, I worked with Ralph Klein back in 2003 on this tort reform issue.

00:09:38.500 I met with Ralph Klein.

00:09:40.540 And Danielle Smith, you are no Ralph Klein. 0.98

00:09:44.260 Okay, next question.

00:09:49.720 Can you tell us more about, like, the Rebecca ad that was, what's it called, like, publicized the advertisement in the 2003 to 2004 period?

00:10:05.040 Absolutely.

00:10:05.520 Absolutely.

00:10:05.920 Yeah.

00:10:07.100 So my daughter, Rebecca, who was seven years old at the time, and she's pushing 30 now and actually works at my office here at McCourt Law Offices.

00:10:20.200 She was sort of our poster girl in that advertisement that basically was a composite of people under the age of 18 who have been injured in automobile accidents.

00:10:33.380 And what we were doing in that advertisement was pointing out that under the proposed Cat Nelson legislation at the time, Finance Minister Nelson in 2003,

00:10:46.800 that a seven-year-old girl walking in a marked crosswalk on her way to a school or a playground mowed down by a distracted driver, you know, texting or something while driving,

00:10:58.200 would be entitled to zero compensation from that reckless driver's automobile insurance company for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:11:09.300 And, of course, the public and, in fact, newspaper columnists, as I say, including Danielle Smith, were just, they thought that this proposed legislation was abhorrence.

00:11:26.500 And, of course, it was defeated.

00:11:29.060 Now, interestingly, this so-called Care First legislation is, well, frankly, even worse than that.

00:11:36.640 And so, you know, if I were to bring back that Rebecca ad, as I say, Rebecca would be a little bit older now, but it remains the same.

00:11:46.240 And that if, you know, whether your name is Rebecca or Henry or Martha or, listen, basically any severely normal Albertan who is severely injured in an automobile accident in this province come 2027,

00:12:02.240 if this Care First scheme goes ahead, will not be entitled to fair compensation from the reckless driver's insurance company for their serious, serious injuries.

00:12:13.720 And that's just outrageous.

00:12:15.940 And it goes so much against what Danielle Smith herself said in that newspaper column back in 2003,

00:12:23.240 that there's a reason that my coffee mug says, hypocrisy, thy name is Marlena. 0.51

00:12:31.060 Okay.

00:12:32.060 Well, then I guess also I would ask you more about how the new system is going to work when someone wants, like, more compensation than they're getting with their insurance.

00:12:43.140 Because I know, like, I talked to the Alberta insurance rate board, yeah, auto insurance rate board,

00:12:50.520 and they were talking to me about how their insurance, like, the person who gets hit, is going to try to, like, compensate them,

00:12:58.600 for example, for their health coverages and whatever happened to them.

00:13:03.920 And on top of that, it'll be, like, workers, kind of like workers comp.

00:13:07.320 But the thing is with the health one as well, it's, like, a 50k cap, I think it is.

00:13:14.260 But that's also because, like, your doctor is going to be the one, or the doctor they choose for you.

00:13:19.220 I'm a very, I'm not certain about that.

00:13:22.080 But the doctor is supposed to be the one that's, like, deciding when you're completely healed and stuff.

00:13:27.480 But the thing is, I heard, like, from, I think it was either Ricky or one of his co-workers,

00:13:33.780 about how, like, they pay, the insurance companies pay the doctors so that, like,

00:13:39.360 they don't have to keep covering the person who's suffering.

00:13:42.400 So, and that's basically what your guys' job is, is to help people who don't have the coverage because of their insurance.

00:13:49.940 So, how would that, like, work under the Care First?

00:13:54.640 Like, are we going to see more insurance companies paying off doctors and stuff, basically, is my question.

00:14:01.260 Yeah, or at least the same number of insurance companies paying off doctors.

00:14:08.860 And, yeah, I think I saw that interview the Western Standard had with Ricky Baga at Crash Lawyer Calgary.

00:14:14.900 And, and if I'm recalling correctly, he observed that under the current system where, where no matter whose fault the accident is,

00:14:23.160 somebody injured in a car crashing Alberta is entitled to up to $50,000 in reimbursement for, for medical expenses,

00:14:30.240 or up to two years, which, whichever comes first, that, that in his experience,

00:14:35.320 maybe something along the lines of one in a thousand, if people ever hit that $50,000 limit.

00:14:41.960 That's certainly consistent with my firm's experience too, that, that the current limit of $50,000 is, is ample in, you know,

00:14:51.360 all but the most catastrophic of, of, of claims.

00:14:55.000 Interestingly, when, when the Klein government 20 odd years ago brought in that minor injury regulation,

00:15:01.460 they actually increased the, the, the, the limit for medical expense reimbursement under that accident benefits portion of the standard auto policy from $10,000 to $50,000.

00:15:13.940 Um, and, and, and the insurance lobby predicted that, well, if, if, if, if you do that,

00:15:18.820 it's going to double, uh, the amount of our payouts, even though the, the, the, the, the, it's, you know,

00:15:24.840 five times the, the amount of the limit, uh, the insurance lobby said, well, that's probably going to, you know,

00:15:29.940 double the amount of our payments.

00:15:31.760 Payments went down, uh, under, under section B of the standard auto policy for medical expenses, uh,

00:15:37.760 after, after the on paper limit was increased from $10,000 to $50,000,

00:15:42.300 because what insurance companies do and what they're going to continue to do under care first is, uh,

00:15:48.100 when somebody makes a claim for these so-called care first benefits, uh,

00:15:52.780 the insurance company is going to send, uh, you the injured party to your, to their special doctor to get a second opinion on,

00:15:59.980 do you really need this treatment? And, uh, and that doctor for, uh, for a relatively nominal fee,

00:16:06.280 maybe a couple of a thousand bucks paid by the insurance company is going to say, you know what?

00:16:10.060 I have never seen a more healthy specimen in my office in my days. Uh, you're all better.

00:16:15.260 Congratulations. You are good to get back to work and you don't need any more physio.

00:16:21.580 Yeah. That's all. Like when I was listening to that, that's the only thing I was very concerned about.

00:16:26.300 Cause I was just like, but who's to say the insurance will pay. Like, I don't like, I feel like you need

00:16:32.380 someone to protect or like someone to speak for you. Yeah. Like power and say, yeah.

00:16:37.500 Yeah. You're absolutely right. And, and who you need obviously is, uh, Ricky Baggett or, or me, or,

00:16:45.020 or, uh, or somebody who has practiced personal injury law for a while and, and is not afraid to go up

00:16:50.300 against, uh, the powerful auto insurance lobby. And, and that's the, probably the biggest problem with

00:16:56.940 this care first, uh, scheme is, is that the whole idea as Nate Horner has suggested in, in a press

00:17:05.180 conference that they had in November of 2024, announcing this care for scheme is that what we

00:17:10.540 want to do is save some money by taking basically taking the lawyers out of the system. But guess what?

00:17:16.460 If you take the lawyers out of the system, you take the protection for Albertans out of the system.

00:17:22.220 I remember, um, a cartoon I saw, uh, and, and, uh, some, somebody is, uh, has found this, uh, uh,

00:17:28.780 this magic lamp and he, and the genie comes out and says, you have, you have three wishes. And, and,

00:17:34.300 uh, the, the, the fella says to the genie, okay, uh, um, wish number one, let's get rid of all the 0.86

00:17:39.580 lawyers. And he said, done. And he said, there you go. Uh, you have no more wishes. And, and the fella said,

00:17:46.140 but genie, you said, I have three wishes. And the genie said, so sue me.

00:17:52.780 I like that. Yeah. Like, um, cause I know like some people are a bit pessimistic about like the

00:18:00.140 fact that some people will try to get more money just because they can, but then at the same time,

00:18:06.300 you still need some sort of protection. If you take protection out the picture, there's, yeah,

00:18:11.500 like you said, the joke kind of tells all. Yeah. It's true. And, and, and yeah, another lawyer,

00:18:18.140 I know, uh, Karen Birlall, who I believe has, has written the odd guest column in the Western

00:18:22.620 standard about this issue. He's pointed out that, that, that under a no fault plan where no matter

00:18:29.180 whose fault the accident is, you're entitled to try to get compensation from, from the insurance

00:18:34.700 company. Uh, but what you may very well see, and we see this in other provinces that have no fault,

00:18:41.020 is an increased number of accidents and possibly an increased number of staged accidents

00:18:47.260 where people, uh, create a car accident on purpose and then claim a bunch of injuries in an attempt

00:18:53.980 to get compensation for, uh, not only for the, for their pain and suffering and for medical expenses,

00:18:59.820 but, but for the, the time off work for that, uh, for that, uh, uh, high paying job that they

00:19:05.100 allegedly had that doesn't seem to have any evidence of the job being a thing on, you know,

00:19:10.540 any CRA documentation that, that is a legitimate, uh, concern. And, and, and perhaps for that reason,

00:19:17.180 uh, what we see in, uh, many no fault jurisdictions is, is when you bring in no fault, uh, car crashes,

00:19:24.220 uh, increase because not only is there more incentive to try to perhaps, uh, commit fraud

00:19:30.780 against insurance companies. Um, but also because, uh, of the fact that, that, uh, under a no fault

00:19:36.460 system, typically while rates tend to go up still for good drivers rates temporarily go down for bad

00:19:43.340 drivers. And, and, and because the reckless drivers insurance company no longer has to compensate

00:19:49.100 that reckless drivers victims, uh, uh, of injured victims. If, if in the case of a car crash, there is

00:19:56.060 less incentive for, for, um, careless motorists to drive safely. And, you know, I, I, I wish this

00:20:03.020 united conservative government were actually conservative. I wish, wish they actually listened

00:20:07.420 to truly conservative economists, such as for example, Jack Mintz, uh, who has stated time and time

00:20:14.060 again, that, that when you bring in no fault sorts of, uh, legislation, what you're doing is ultimately,

00:20:21.260 uh, reducing, uh, the likelihood that people are going to drive safely. And not only of course,

00:20:27.500 from a human perspective, does, does that cause more, uh, injuries and fatalities on the road,

00:20:33.260 which that alone should be enough to say, well, no fault's a bad idea, but, but if you increase

00:20:37.900 injuries and fatalities on the road, what you ultimately do is increase auto insurance premiums.

00:20:43.580 And that defeats the entire alleged purpose, uh, of this scare first program, which, which according

00:20:50.380 to, uh, finance minister, Nate Horner is to try to, uh, reduce comp, uh, reduce, um, uh, premiums for,

00:20:56.860 for Alberta drivers. Now he he's admitted, uh, recently in a, in a column by Rick Bell of the

00:21:02.700 Calgary Herald, but well, actually premiums might not go down. They might go up as much as, uh, 400

00:21:08.140 bucks a year for, for the average, uh, Alberta motorist. And frankly, I would think if I'm

00:21:13.260 Danielle Smith, uh, I'm, I'm wondering at this point, well then what on earth was the point

00:21:18.380 of that finance department proposing this care first? I would recommend that she slam on the 1.00

00:21:23.740 brakes and reverse course on this care first, uh, scheme. Hmm. Okay. Well on that note,

00:21:30.220 I kind of wanted to talk about the tort reform plan that you want to, uh, introduce instead of the

00:21:37.260 care first system, like, since I don't know that much about that and probably lots of viewers maybe

00:21:43.420 do know, but maybe they also don't. So why don't you tell us more about that?

00:21:47.740 Yeah, well, we we've seen, uh, polling over the last, uh, really over the last four or five years,

00:21:53.820 and it's very consistent that, that, uh, somewhere in the area of 70 to 80% of Albertans, uh, are, are

00:22:00.780 strongly in favor of, uh, the concept of rights and responsibilities. They think that bad drivers should be

00:22:06.060 held accountable. Uh, they think that innocent victims of, uh, reckless motorists should be

00:22:10.940 entitled to fair compensation, uh, from bad drivers, insurers for, for their pain and suffering, loss

00:22:16.460 of enjoyment of life, et cetera. And at the same time, of course, uh, Albertans, uh, uh, would,

00:22:21.980 would like to save a few bucks on everything, uh, certainly including their auto insurance premiums.

00:22:28.220 So, so the question is how, uh, how does one have their cake and eat it too? And, and, and, uh,

00:22:34.140 what, uh, myself and, uh, and a number of other lawyers have done is, uh, including the Alberta

00:22:39.260 Civil Trial Lawyers Association, for example, is, is come up with, uh, uh, uh, conservative

00:22:45.260 nuanced reforms to the current tort system, also known as the at-fault auto insurance system.

00:22:51.100 And so that, um, so that, uh, uh, premiums can be reduced for good Alberta motorists and at the same

00:22:57.180 time maintain, uh, the core of, uh, of, of the, uh, of Albertans rights to fair compensation if

00:23:04.140 injured by reckless drivers. So for example, what I have suggested is again, going back to that minor

00:23:09.580 injury regulation that was put in place by, uh, premier client's government in 2004, that caps

00:23:15.980 compensation at, uh, just a shade under 6,200 bucks now for 2025 actions for pain and suffering

00:23:22.460 for people who, who are hurt in a car accident and have whiplash injuries or sprains and strains

00:23:27.740 that heal relatively quickly, basically within roughly three to six months. That's, that comprises

00:23:33.180 about, uh, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada themselves, about 80% of auto, auto accident

00:23:38.700 cases. My proposal would be if you remove that 80% of cases, those, those injuries that are current,

00:23:45.660 currently captured by the minor injury regulation, remove that from the tort system and give Albertans

00:23:51.580 the option if they want to, to purchase that sort of optional coverage by, from their own insurance

00:23:56.700 company that would reduce, uh, uh, uh, uh, premiums for, for good Alberta motorists by between about

00:24:04.380 a hundred bucks, which is my estimate to, to perhaps as much as $200, which is the insurance lobby's

00:24:11.100 estimate. And, and there's, you know, some other things that can be done. There's,

00:24:14.540 there's something called pre-judgment interest, which is payable on, on injury claims. Uh, uh,

00:24:19.900 my proposal would be to eliminate any pre-judgment interest on pain and suffering compensation.

00:24:25.340 And then I've kind of stolen some ideas from that economist, uh, Jack Mintz, uh, who, who I mentioned

00:24:32.620 before he's suggested and has, has been suggesting for decades for at least over 20 years, uh, eliminating

00:24:39.500 the insurance premium tax, which is a hidden tax on everybody's insurance premium. Uh, and that,

00:24:45.500 that would save Albertans another roughly, uh, 90, a hundred bucks a year on their auto insurance

00:24:51.260 premiums. I've got a whole bunch more ideas and I've put those to the government. I've been putting

00:24:56.700 them to the government for the last 18 months. And it's funny, you know, um, Danielle Smith, who I was,

00:25:01.500 I was, you know, 20 odd years ago, I was on her national program, uh, uh, uh, talking about auto

00:25:07.980 insurance. Uh, she quoted me in that, uh, that Calgary Herald column that I, I mentioned, uh, at the,

00:25:14.060 at the beginning of this interview. Um, but Danielle Smith doesn't seem to be listening to me anymore. 0.79

00:25:19.820 And I really think she probably should. And, um, and if she doesn't listen to me right quick, uh,

00:25:25.420 well, I, I'll be seeing her at the, uh, the UCP, uh, annual general meeting at the end of, uh,

00:25:30.860 November, um, uh, up here in Edmonton. So, uh, you'll be listening to me then, Danielle.

00:25:37.260 Okay. Well, we'll see then we'll see. Um, well, thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate you

00:25:43.820 joining us today and that's all I have. So if you guys liked the video, then definitely subscribe to

00:25:53.020 the Western channel, uh, Western standard YouTube channel. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you can also

00:25:59.420 check out our website where you can also subscribe for $10 a month. So thank you very much, everyone.

00:26:05.180 And goodbye. Thanks Leah. Bye-bye.

Western Standard - September 10, 2025

Alberta's care first system — a repeat of 20 years ago？

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