ICBC is suffering from a bad case of rape and pillage which could explain much of the dissatisfaction by British Columbians regarding the worrying fear of large insurance rate increases.
Christy Clark and Finance Minister de Jong between them interfered with ICBC, a crown corporation, and helped themselves to hundreds of millions of dollars which were likely the cushion which every insurance company has.
This “gift” allowed the provincial Liberal government, in part, to declare a balanced budget. They knew the whole situation before the May election but chose to do nothing about it. Christy Clark could then boast of no new taxes, conveniently forgetting about increasing auto insurance costs.
Not only did this siphoning of money from ICBC occur, but B.C. Hydro, the once proud public utility, was also on the hook for some transfer funding as well as being mandated to buy power from the run of river private producers at a price which would enable the private companies a profit! It was a case of forced “buy high, sell low” as the market price was less than the purchase.
Not good business tactic; the people of B.C. were thus subjected to increased electrical rates.
I hope we have seen an end to government interfering with publicly held utilities.
Given competent, honest management and no slight-of-hand deceitful money transfers, crown corporations such as ICBC and B.C. Hydro could be of immense value to the people of B.C.
Sheila White
Summerland
