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Changing the law and not telling the public
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ICBC is changing law(s) which will affect British
Columbians without making those changes public knowledge or informing people, and then holding
the public in non-compliance by soliciting hefty fees and unneccessary driving re-examinations and testing.
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Update:
June 8, 2004 - According to the Honourable Bryan Williams, Q.C., former Chief Justice of the BC Supreme
Court, and currently the ICBC Fairness Commissioner, "The question of ICBC communicating policy changes has arisen before today
and I have taken the position with ICBC that communications in this regard must be made ... "
more
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Since the creation of the Motor Vehicle Act, people with BC drivers licenses have
had five years to renew their licenses, and five years to renew after the license expiry.
In November 1999, ICBC changed the time allowed for a driver to renew a driver's license once it has expired.
Under the old policy it was five years. Since November 1999 it has been three years.
ICBC did not make the change to the law public and did not tell the thousands of people the change would affect.
The result of this change is that thousands of drivers who did not
renew within the unannounced three year time limit have had to pay $125 and undergo re-examinations (the road test, the road signals test, vision
test and to drive, a learner's permit) in order to have their driver's license renewed.
In effect, the public was
labelled the 'wrong-doer', not ICBC - who collected the fees and conducted the unnecessary re-examinations knowing that
the public
could not have known of the change to the law since it had not been made public.
According to statistics provided by ICBC (below), it is clear
that ICBC knew that
a minimum of 38,000 people annually would be affected by the unannounced policy change:
Year Thousands
1995 44,753
1996 46,944
1997 38,526
1998 53,757
1999 57,142
These are people who would have abided by the five year requirement which was the only law known to the public.
Although the statistics supplied above are for the years 1995 - 1999*, drivers are still being forced to
undergo the unnecessary driver re-examinations,
road testing and hefty fee payments for the unannounced change.
* Due to the cost cited by ICBC to obtain the statistics for 2000 to present,
"$16.50 per minute for mainframe computing time and $7.50 per quarter hour for programmer's time" and the time
it took ICBC to provide the above statistics (nearly 1/2 year), the cost prohibitions are too great for Visit Vancouver to incur.
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Lying to the public
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ICBC staff and managers routinely lied to the public by telling people
who complained that they had not been informed of the policy change that letters had been sent out and announcements were
made in the media. ICBC has now admitted that no letters were sent out and no public
announcements of the change were made. The public was not made aware
of this change in policy.
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ICBC fills their coffers
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"
ICBC reported net income of $225 million for the year ended December 31, 2003."
- ICBC
No one knows exactly what was earned by ICBC and
the Crown corporation's extortion on the public.
If we look at the statistics obtained from ICBC for the years of 1995 to 1999 (above), over 200,000
British Columbians were affected, directly. We do not have the statistics from 2000 to present however the
ICBC Service Plan 2003-2005, states that "On an annual basis ICBC performs over 1.2 million transactions
relating to the issuance of drivers licenses and driver exams."
The report does not specify those licenses
and exams which were and continue to be performed on an annual basis by keeping changes to the law from the public nor the profit
to ICBC from the fees collected.
Since people who renewed after the unannounced change to the law had to pay a minimum of $125 each and a minimum of
38,000 people annually were affected according to ICBC's statistics above,
it can be assumed that major additional profits were made by ICBC by not telling the public about the policy change.
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Don't be surprised if you're next ...
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Not only was the public lied to, but ICBC has also set a dangerous precedent: ICBC will change
laws, not make them public, and make the public pay as a result of changes
they were not made aware of. Once this precedent has been set,
ICBC can continue to do this legally.
Over 3 million British Columbians are affected by ICBC'S laws, regulations, rules and legislation.
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Visit Vancouver's Site Poll |
Our site poll asks the question of site visitors "Does ICBC have the right to force compliance
with unannounced laws/policies?"
5% say yes.
3% sometimes.
49% say no.
44% say never.
93% agree that ICBC does not have the right
to force compliance with unannounced laws or policies.
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JOIN US |
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What you can do to
put pressure on ICBC:
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Email your friends this
page info. Telling other
people what's happening is
very effective.
Spread the word !!! |
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Other ways to help |
Phone
Premier Campbell
(250) 387-1715*
(*a free phone call
via
BC Enquiry
at
604-660-2421)
Minister Rich Coleman:
tel 604-607-6200/
fax 604-607-6205
ICBC Fairness Commissioner,
Hon. Bryan Williams
tel 604-643-1213
fax 604-643-1200
Send an email to:
or email
our
letter
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Other articles:
·
What does the Premier know?
·
Minister Coleman,
(responsible for ICBC
portfolio),
Questions to the
Minister
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MLA/Minister of Finance, Gary Collins
'mums the word'
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Attorney General's Executive Assistant,
Jason Kuzinski,
"Breach of privacy?"
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ICBC Fairness Review process, "
Is it really fair?"
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One person's ordeal
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