A similar system was introduced in Alberta in 2003 and 2004, but it was defeated by the Klein government. Since then, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has been pushing for a similar system, and now Jason Kenney is in charge of the United Conservative Party of Canada.
00:00:00.000Hello, 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.
00:00:12.120And 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?
00:00:39.760Sure. 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.
00:00:58.840The auto insurance industry was claiming to the Conservative government under Premier Ralph Klein at the time that they were barely making ends meet.
00:01:10.200The auto insurance industry was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
00:01:13.120And 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.
00:01:34.080And so that was going to be put to a vote back in October of 2003.
00:01:39.760And 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,
00:01:54.720my 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,
00:02:04.160that would be unconservative, unconstitutional, unalbertant, unfair, and selling out Albertans to mollify a multi-billion dollar insurance industry.
00:02:19.640And 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.
00:02:36.560And 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.
00:02:55.560So 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.
00:03:04.360So, 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?
00:03:17.600It is, it's the same insurance lobby, it's the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
00:03:23.280The insurance lobbyist has long since moved on to better things.
00:03:29.140Strangely, 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.
00:03:51.960So, the same insurance, the IBC, but it's a different fellow that is leading the charge.
00:04:25.920Leah, it is just because of the lobby, the insurance lobby.
00:04:29.840So, 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.
00:04:51.260And frankly, so that insurance, auto insurance companies can make a bunch more money.
00:04:58.380And so, every time we see a new government elected in Alberta, we see the insurance lobby trot out their old arguments.
00:05:08.480It's always the same arguments that we are having a really tough time making ends meet.
00:05:14.460We 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?
00:05:31.880We saw that in 2015 when the Notley NDP government was brought in place.
00:05:37.820Even the Notley NDP government brought in some mild reforms to the minor injury regulation back in about 2018.
00:05:46.320And 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.
00:06:00.080And the UCP's campaign chair for the 2019 election immediately became a lobbyist for the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
00:06:09.880And 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,
00:06:26.440even 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.
00:06:41.880Even though these very powerful, well-connected people were lobbying the Kenney government to do that,
00:06:49.100Travis Taves, who, thankfully for Albertans and for plaintiff counsel, possesses a triple-digit IQ, he wasn't buying what the insurance lobby was selling.
00:07:03.020And 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.
00:07:16.140And 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.
00:07:33.060Okay, 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?
00:07:44.220What are the similarities that you can, like, draw between the two?
00:07:47.040Well, 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.
00:08:00.520It's up to about $6,200 now with inflation, but it caps at a few thousand dollars.
00:08:07.900Payments suffer in compensation for whiplash, injuries, strains, and sprains that heal relatively quickly.
00:08:14.820And, you know, as I say, Ralph Klein's finance minister wanted something somewhat quite significantly different than that.
00:08:25.240She wanted a cap on compensation for injuries that were nothing short of catastrophic.
00:08:30.080We're talking about brain injuries, injuries just short of paraplegia, quadriplegia, injuries just short of third-degree burns, et cetera, et cetera.
00:08:42.020And what Ralph Klein did is he said, well, let's see what my caucus, my conservative caucus thinks of that.
00:09:49.720Can 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?
00:10:07.100So 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.
00:10:20.200She 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.
00:10:33.380And 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,
00:10:46.800that 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,
00:10:58.200would 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.
00:11:09.300And, 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.
00:11:29.060Now, interestingly, this so-called Care First legislation is, well, frankly, even worse than that.
00:11:36.640And 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.
00:11:46.240And 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,
00:12:02.240if 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.
00:12:32.060Well, 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.
00:12:43.140Because I know, like, I talked to the Alberta insurance rate board, yeah, auto insurance rate board,
00:12:50.520and they were talking to me about how their insurance, like, the person who gets hit, is going to try to, like, compensate them,
00:12:58.600for example, for their health coverages and whatever happened to them.
00:13:03.920And on top of that, it'll be, like, workers, kind of like workers comp.
00:13:07.320But the thing is with the health one as well, it's, like, a 50k cap, I think it is.
00:13:14.260But that's also because, like, your doctor is going to be the one, or the doctor they choose for you.
00:13:19.220I'm a very, I'm not certain about that.
00:13:22.080But the doctor is supposed to be the one that's, like, deciding when you're completely healed and stuff.
00:13:27.480But the thing is, I heard, like, from, I think it was either Ricky or one of his co-workers,
00:13:33.780about how, like, they pay, the insurance companies pay the doctors so that, like,
00:13:39.360they don't have to keep covering the person who's suffering.
00:13:42.400So, and that's basically what your guys' job is, is to help people who don't have the coverage because of their insurance.
00:13:49.940So, how would that, like, work under the Care First?
00:13:54.640Like, are we going to see more insurance companies paying off doctors and stuff, basically, is my question.
00:14:01.260Yeah, or at least the same number of insurance companies paying off doctors.
00:14:08.860And, yeah, I think I saw that interview the Western Standard had with Ricky Baga at Crash Lawyer Calgary.
00:14:14.900And, and if I'm recalling correctly, he observed that under the current system where, where no matter whose fault the accident is,
00:14:23.160somebody injured in a car crashing Alberta is entitled to up to $50,000 in reimbursement for, for medical expenses,
00:14:30.240or up to two years, which, whichever comes first, that, that in his experience,
00:14:35.320maybe something along the lines of one in a thousand, if people ever hit that $50,000 limit.
00:14:41.960That's certainly consistent with my firm's experience too, that, that the current limit of $50,000 is, is ample in, you know,
00:14:51.360all but the most catastrophic of, of, of claims.
00:14:55.000Interestingly, when, when the Klein government 20 odd years ago brought in that minor injury regulation,
00:15:01.460they 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.
00:15:13.940Um, and, and, and the insurance lobby predicted that, well, if, if, if, if you do that,
00:15:18.820it's going to double, uh, the amount of our payouts, even though the, the, the, the, the, it's, you know,
00:15:24.840five times the, the amount of the limit, uh, the insurance lobby said, well, that's probably going to, you know,