The B.C. government is quietly changing legislation that is at the centre of a class action lawsuit making its way through the courts.
The suit, filed in 2020, alleges that the province is illegally using ICBC to tax people for health-care costs by essentially double-dipping on MSP premiums.
The suit says the practice has cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driven up insurance costs for decades.
The suit alleges that “for decades, ICBC has been making payments to the provincial Medical Services Plan contrary to law. Those payments have cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driven up insurance costs unnecessarily and unlawfully.”
Now, the province has quietly tabled legislation.
“The legislation effectively removes what was being complained of in the class action, the ability of ICBC to effectively double dip and get compensation both through the insurance process as well as compensation through the MSP process when people’s medical claims are paid out,” Kyla Lee, a lawyer at Acumen Law, told Global News.
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“Nothing about this legislation being tabled, if it passes, is going to change what’s happened in the past, but it’s interesting timing that they’re doing it now. It seems to be tacitly an admission that what they were doing all along was maybe not correct.
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“So the fact that they are amending the legislation and doing it quietly may be something that benefits the lawsuit in the long term, but anybody that’s already been affected by this, they’re still a member of the class, the case is still going to have to proceed through court unless there’s a settlement.”
Lawyer Scott Stanley, a partner at Murphy Battista Law Firm, said if the lawsuit is successful, it could mean a rebate for anyone who has bought insurance from ICBC going back to 1973.
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Legal hurdle crossed in ICBC class action lawsuit
In 2022, then-attorney general David Eby tried using legislation to stop the lawsuit, saying, “Our government has been committed to drive down the cost of car insurance for British Columbians, and part of that is responding to a culture of endless litigation.”
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Lawyers for the suit say, “The government can’t collect hidden taxes from us. In 1994, an NDP government forced ICBC to pay a hidden tax, which increased everyone’s ICBC rates. Three decades later, another NDP government is trying to pass a law that they hope will allow them to get away with this.”
The class action is set for trial on Sept. 14, 2026.
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