Western Standard - November 27, 2025


Lawyer Breaks Down the UCP’s ‘Care-First’ Insurance Plan — What Albertans Need to Know

Guests
Karimvir Lal
Mentioned
David Eby James H. Brown
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Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

148.29

Word count

1,584

Sentence count

84


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I speak with Karimvir Lal, a lawyer and legislative researcher at James H. Brown and Associates, about the proposed change to Alberta's no-fault insurance policy introduced by the United Conservative Party of Alberta.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. My name is Leah Mashett. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard.
00:00:14.780 And today my guest is Karimvir Lal. He's a lawyer at James H. Brown and Associates.
00:00:20.800 And he's also he also used to be a legislative researcher at the Alberta Government Caucus,
00:00:25.800 supporting elected officials in designing policy and legislation.
00:00:30.000 Today, he's my guest because the Care First insurance policy resolution is being introduced at the UCP AGM,
00:00:39.180 which is the last weekend of November. So he introduced his policy resolution.
00:00:44.380 It's to amend the Care First system, which is supposed to be introduced in January 2027.
00:00:50.180 So I wanted to talk to him more about that today. So thank you again, Karimvir, for joining us.
00:00:56.260 And yeah, so my first question to you would be, why did you introduce this policy resolution?
00:01:02.340 And why do you think it would be wise for the government to basically amend the policy?
00:01:09.040 Sure. So I guess like my comment with that is I believe that the UCP in the past had passed a policy
00:01:19.480 back in, I think, about 2022, 2023, basically saying that they didn't want to see no-fault insurance introduced into Alberta.
00:01:29.220 Now, the exact wording of that policy that was passed back then referred to or directly referred to DCPD,
00:01:39.640 which is direct compensation for property damage.
00:01:44.100 And just generally, I figured that that resolution was a little bit too specific.
00:01:48.700 Ultimately, I think that, you know, conservative members should support fault-based insurance
00:01:55.680 just because that's consistent with, you know, conservative values of accountability and, you know, personal responsibility.
00:02:05.580 So I don't think that the UCP members themselves support no-fault insurance.
00:02:13.000 You know, they certainly don't support, you know, David Eby's style.
00:02:18.760 And of course, David Eby is the premier who introduced no-fault insurance into BC.
00:02:24.420 So I think that I figured that conservative members would likely be in favor of repealing no-fault insurance
00:02:34.080 and returning back to a fault-based system.
00:02:36.740 And I was pleased to see that that resolution will be debated at the upcoming AGF.
00:02:43.000 Okay, so on that note, since it's going to be debated and everything,
00:02:48.580 are you, you're, well, you're saying it's obviously a very important issue.
00:02:52.220 That's why the party chose it to be voted on by the members.
00:02:55.520 So do you think that most people will end up voting to basically amend the policy?
00:03:02.960 And also, why do you think as well that the party even decided, well, most of the MLAs who voted for it
00:03:11.900 to put in place the care-first system to begin with?
00:03:16.240 Sure.
00:03:16.760 So I certainly hope that UCP members would support it.
00:03:20.120 You know, I think that it's the right thing to do.
00:03:23.440 It's, you know, consistent with conservative values, in my opinion.
00:03:28.160 Of course, like, you know, we'll see how the members vote this weekend.
00:03:32.020 But in terms of, like, why the government considered this policy,
00:03:40.740 I think the rationale was a little bit different back when, you know,
00:03:46.300 the policy was first being introduced by the government.
00:03:50.340 So when the government passed the legislation, which was, of course, earlier this year,
00:03:56.860 sometime in the spring, sort of the trade-off that they had discussed was that government
00:04:05.460 or, well, I guess consumers would save about $400 of their auto insurance.
00:04:10.100 And in order to achieve those savings, the government would essentially restrict the ability
00:04:15.100 for individuals to sue at-fault drivers to essentially those who are just victims of criminal offences.
00:04:24.600 So that, I guess, as time has gone on, the insurance companies have been indicating
00:04:32.000 that they don't believe that the government is going to achieve any sort of savings,
00:04:37.780 given that under the no-fault system, they'll be giving, you know, more generous benefits
00:04:41.860 to everyone, regardless of their fault.
00:04:46.840 So, and given that and given the propensity of, you know, no-fault systems to be vulnerable
00:04:53.480 to things like fraud from, you know, bad actors and organized crime,
00:04:58.880 I think that the policy rationale for introducing the no-fault system has changed quite substantially.
00:05:06.740 So I'm hoping that, you know, if the government, you know, is so inclined
00:05:13.140 that they take another look at this policy, because I think what they have currently
00:05:18.520 isn't what's right for all burdens.
00:05:21.720 So, yeah, so if most people vote to amend it, do you think, like,
00:05:27.480 the government will start acting right away to potentially change it?
00:05:32.320 Or how do you think that will look?
00:05:33.500 Sure. So, I mean, of course, the wording of the policy resolution is to essentially
00:05:40.780 repeal no-fault insurance. I think that, as you know, all policy resolutions that are
00:05:48.220 passed of the UCPAGM are non-binding on the government. But what it instead would show is,
00:05:54.820 I think, just the general will of the membership and how they feel about this particular issue.
00:06:01.080 So, if the message from the members is very clear that they don't want to see, you know,
00:06:07.020 no-fault insurance in Alberta, I would hope that the government, you know, considers that very
00:06:13.400 carefully because, you know, it wouldn't be, you know, consistent with the wishes of their own
00:06:19.360 members. But I mean, of course, how the government chooses to act on a, you know, policy resolution
00:06:24.940 passed at the UCPAGM is ultimately up to cabinet.
00:06:29.900 Well, on that note as well, say most members vote that they want to repeal it.
00:06:36.220 Um, do you think that if the government doesn't repeal it, it's not going to be a good look for
00:06:42.580 them? Or what do you think?
00:06:43.960 I would certainly think so. You know, I think that when it's very rare that you see a, like a UCP
00:06:52.380 policy that's passed that's sort of like directly in opposition to what the government of the day is
00:06:57.960 actually, um, you know, hoping to accomplish. Now, um, I think that if, if the government is, um, you
00:07:05.700 know, takes this into consideration, they would see that, you know, the original policy trade-off
00:07:10.980 that they made, um, no longer applies. So, it's potentially worth taking another look. The idea
00:07:17.280 was always, well, we'll restrict your right to sue, uh, unless like there's a criminal offense and in
00:07:23.300 return, everyone will save $400 on auto insurance, which, you know, I mean, um, I personally would
00:07:29.740 disagree with that, but it's, it's a valid decision for the government to make. Obviously, affordability
00:07:34.600 is the number one issue on, uh, a lot of folks' minds. But given the fact that there isn't going
00:07:40.360 to be any savings associated with this new policy, um, I would think that the government should,
00:07:45.860 you know, very strongly consider taking another look at it because essentially what they'll be doing
00:07:50.680 is, you know, trading away folks' rights for nothing. Well, yeah. So also, since you're a
00:07:57.420 lawyer, why don't you just go into maybe a bit about what you are most concerned about if CareFirst
00:08:03.360 is actually passed? Sure. So, uh, of course, CareFirst is, is the government's branding for their
00:08:10.960 privately run no-fault insurance system, um, which is somewhat unique in Canada, uh, given that it would
00:08:18.560 be like the first privately run, um, no-fault auto insurance system. Um, Ontario sort of has a hybrid
00:08:26.020 privately run model, but this would be, um, one where, uh, you can't sue for any circumstances other
00:08:33.220 than if there's, um, the, the at-fault driver is a criminally convicted of something. So, very similar to
00:08:39.480 what the policy is in British Columbia. Um, so British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan all have,
00:08:47.300 uh, publicly run no-fault systems, uh, very similar to, um, the WCB in every province. Uh, one of the
00:08:55.440 concerns that I would have, um, as a, uh, as a, as a lawyer who, you know, represents folks who are
00:09:01.960 injured in, um, you know, various types of accidents, mishaps, you know, and malpractice,
00:09:07.800 et cetera. Um, is that, you know, when you're, when you're, uh, dealing with private companies,
00:09:13.480 um, ultimately, like, they're driven by their bottom lines and they're not necessarily motivated
00:09:18.780 by, you know, uh, what makes, um, you know, what's best for Albertans. Um, so, for example,
00:09:25.880 even though, say, the WCB is, um, you know, has lots of problems and, and, you know, lots of folks
00:09:33.220 aren't happy with it. Um, it is somewhat accountable to the elected officials because it is a, you know,
00:09:39.080 a government-run system. Um, when you're dealing with private insurance companies and they're
00:09:44.080 basically saying, well, if you have a dispute with us, there's going to be, you know, no recourse
00:09:49.000 and no meaningful way to dispute the decisions of a private company. I mean, uh, I, I think,
00:09:54.460 I think the concern that you'll see is, is folks will, you know, get cut off and you won't really
00:10:00.360 be able to keep them effectively accountable to ensure that, uh, people who needed most are getting
00:10:06.460 adequately compensated. Hmm. Yeah. Well, I don't know this, all the questions I had for you. So
00:10:13.800 thank you again for joining us, Karim Veer. We really appreciate it. Um, and if you guys liked this
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00:10:40.280 And goodbye.