In the run-up to the last provincial election, the B.C. Liberals provided dramatic confirmation of the deteriorating financial situation at the Insurance Corp. of B.C.

VICTORIA — In the run-up to the last provincial election, the B.C. Liberals provided dramatic confirmation of the deteriorating financial situation at the Insurance Corp. of B.C.

The government-owned automobile insurance corporation was poised to lose almost $700 million in the then-current financial year and more than $800 million over three years, according to financial statements tabled with the Feb. 21, 2017 provincial budget.

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The looming deficit did not go unnoticed by the NDP Opposition, which seized on the sharp contrast between the latest money-losing scenario and the more rosy picture painted earlier by B.C. Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong.

“In 2015, when the minister of finance tabled his budget, ICBC was projected to have net revenues of $678 million over a three-year period,” noted Opposition leader John Horgan in the first question period after budget day.

“Unfortunately, in the document tabled yesterday by the minister of finance, those surpluses are now a deficit to the tune of $833 million — a $1.5 billion swing in what they said they were going to do and what the actuals are going to be.”

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Hence the question to then-minister for ICBC Todd Stone: “Will the minister have the jam to stand up and tell people just how much his boondoggle is going to cost the drivers of British Columbia?”

Stone insisted the Liberals were taking action: getting tough on fraud and distracted driving, hiring more staff to expedite claims, and commissioning an independent third party review of ICBC, albeit one that would not be completed until (ahem) after the election.

But he couldn’t deny what his own government’s financial statements disclosed, as the New Democrats readily noted.

“This is the government that took $1.2 billion meant to pay claims out of ICBC, the first government in the history of B.C. to do it,” continued Adrian Dix, the Opposition critic for ICBC, reminding the house of the widely-reported cash grab that commenced seven years earlier.

“They’re not witnesses to rising insurance costs. They’re driving the car. When will the minister finally take responsibility for those bad choices that B.C. drivers are going to have to pay for?”

Coupled with ICBC’s disclosure in late 2016 that it might need a 42 per cent rate increase to square up its accounts, the New Democrats had no difficulty translating the Liberal record of cash grabs and deficits into an enough is enough vow in the election platform that helped them win a shot at governing.

I mention all this because it is not the case that the Liberals managed to completely hide the deteriorating financial situation at ICBC, contrary to what Attorney General David Eby has repeatedly claimed since taking charge of ICBC last summer.

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He repeated his most over the top charge again yesterday during an interview with Mike Smyth on CKNW radio station.

“Before the election your listeners might recall that ICBC was projected to lose $11 million,” he told Smyth. “Last fiscal year they were projected to lose $11 million, they actually lost over $900 million, that’s a 9,000 per cent increase over the projection.”

The before-the-election projection for the 2016-17 fiscal year was for ICBC to lose $697 million, according to the financial statements cited above and quoted by Eby’s own leader, now premier, Horgan in the legislature on Feb. 22, 2017.

ICBC would go on to lose $913 million, according to the most recent financial statements, for an overrun of 31 per cent. Which is bad enough but not in the same league as Eby’s 9,000 per cent.

Despite the more accurate figure being drawn to the attention of ministry staff and acknowledged last November, Eby continues to cite the more extravagant claim.

The unnecessary exaggeration is one reason why it is difficult to trust the NDP claim that Eby can function as a neutral arbiter on the coming referendum on proportional representation. He is as partisan a politician as exists in this government, as his handling of the ICBC file suggests.

None of which diminishes even slightly the B.C. Liberal culpability for serial botch-up on the ICBC file, so bad that it needs no exaggeration. Nor does it justify the shameless effort by the Liberals to cover their tracks in recent days.

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“David Eby has had a report on ICBC options on his desk and he’s done nothing with it,” declared leadership hopeful de Jong this week, referring to the review commissioned before the election and delivered afterward.

“The NDP need to get beyond blaming and start governing … The B.C. Liberals knew there were problems which is why we began making changes … The NDP sat there dithering.”

This from the same de Jong, who admits to suppressing the fix-it recommendations in an alarmist report on ICBC delivered to his finance ministry in late 2014.

That act of censorship and neglect, the cash grab going back to 2010, plus other sins of commission and omission, ensured more than enough B.C. Liberal fingerprints on the ICBC file to indict de Jong, Stone and the rest for the current debacle.

Still, there’s de Jong, faulting the New Democrats for not fixing in six months what he and his colleagues concocted over 16 years.

A more up to the moment example of Liberal arrogance and denial would be difficult to imagine. If the party does choose de Jong as leader this week, it would amount to promising “more of the same.”

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