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B.C. Insurance Act rewrite may not see light of day until 2010


May 12, 2008   by Canadian Underwriter


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B.C.’s revised Insurance Act might not be passed until 2010 about seven years after the Supreme Court of Canada found that B.C.’s Insurance Act was antiquated and needed a re-write, B.C. political affairs columnist Vaughn Palmer told a convention of the Insurance Brokers Association of B.C. (IBABC)
With much fanfare, on April 30, the B.C. government introduced Bill 40, its much-anticipated proposed re-write of its Insurance Act, Palmer noted in an address to IBABC convention delegates on May 9.
Within a week, on May 6, the B.C. legislature deferred discussion of Bill 40 until an unspecified future session of the legislature.
Palmer, a columnist for the Vancouver Sun, described Bill 40 as the victim of typical political “horse-trading.”
“Every year, when we get toward the end of a session, a round of horse-trading arises over what is business we can possibly get done [by May 29, when the Spring 2008 session ends],” Palmer said.
He noted the B.C. government introduced 10 new pieces of legislation in the same week as the Insurance Act, including highly controversial legislation such as the Carbon Tax Act and proposed new legislation to restrict third-party campaign advertising.
Thus the question became what the government and opposition parties agreed they would have time to discuss, Palmer said. “And so the Insurance Act was traded away,” he said. “Officially, the bill is deferred to a future session of the legislature.”
But the problem with deferring the act until the fall, Palmer said, is that there may not be a fall session. It has been cancelled in the past, he noted, although he guessed it could be revived in the event of an effective treaty negotiation with the province’s First Nations.
If it isn’t discussed in a Fall 2008 sitting, Palmer added, the bill won’t be reviewed for at least another year, since there is a provincial election scheduled for 2009, meaning it could take until 2010 to see the revised act debated and passed.
IBABC CEO Chuck Byrne said he was very disappointed in the decision of both the government and opposition politicians to defer the bill.


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