BY GEORGE VICTOR

Bill Bennett’s Socred government, in its
headlong rush to ‘‘downsize’’ the provincial
government and sell off various services such
as the Insurance Corporation, B.C. (ICBC),
1s completely ignoring any attempt at con-
Sultation, public debate and advice — even
when it comes from some of its staunchest
Supporters.

It has long been a basic tenet of Socred
dogma that the ‘‘evil monopoly” of ICBC
should be sold to private enterprise; and
after almost a decade in power Premier Ben-
” Nett feels that the time is now right to do so.
The first step in the sell out of ICBC came
_ Within a week of the May 5 election when the
corporation’s body shop, employing 20
workers and six apprentices, and which con-
ducted research for the industry as a whole,
and returned $80,000 in annual profits to
provincial coffers, was eliminated.

The next step came when the
government’s own Legislative Committee
on Crown Corporations, chaired by Socred
MLA Jack Kempf, was scrapped in early Ju-
ly — before it presented its results but not
before it spent almost $500,000 in costs.
Bennett didn’t like the committee’s finding
that ICBC was working well in serving the
needs of the province.

The third step was made by Jim Hewitt,
the minister responsible for ICBC to appoint
a secret committee of ‘‘experts’’ to meet at
undisclosed intervals and prepare a confi-
dential report by a vague deadline in early
December.

The minister has categorically refused to
comment on why the people’s business and
Money. is being dealt with in such an
autocratic fashion. But sources in the in-
dustry have learned of at least some of the
committee members. They are Jill Bodkin, a
deputy minister in Hewitt’s department;
Jake Brouwer, a Vancouver investment and
insurance dealer and prominent Conser-
vative; Patrick Kinsella, Bennett’s aide who
was formerly in the insurance industry in
Ontario; and Tom Holmes, president of
ICBC. It is not known if there are any other
_ Members, as Hewitt refuses to either con-
firm or deny the identity of his appointees.

It is widely believed that the secret com-
Mittee’s task was to prepare a report that
would indicate the easiest method of selling
off or handing over all or part of ICBC. The
minister has again declined to comment on

receipt of the réport or what the specific
recommendations are.

Opposition to these government actions
was immediate and far-ranging. In July,
over 330 independent insurance agents,
representing almost 80 per cent of the private
agents in B.C., formed the Insurance Agents
for the Retention of ICBC, and petitioned
the government not to privatize the corpora-
tion. A spokesman for the group said that,
to date, no response has been received from
the Socreds.

The Automotive Retailers Association,
representing the province’s body shops,
garages, towing companies, suppliers and
car dealers, met in convention in September
in Penticton (Hewitt’s own riding) and pass-
ed a unanimous resolution formally re-
questing the government to retain ICBC.
Hewitt and his cabinet colleagues have ig-
nored this lobby from a group that has tradi-
tionally supported the government and that
has produced batallions of prominent
Socreds such as Evan Wolfe, Kerster and
Jim Pattison.

The North Vancouver Chamber of Com-
merce, not noted for its socialist tendencies,
said, in a public letter to Premier Bennett on
Nov. 20 that ICBC is doing a job the private
sector cannot do’’, and strongly urged the
government not to tamper with the public
corporation. Even the Vancouver Sun, in an
editorial Nov. 22, said, ‘‘dismantling ICBC
for the sake of ideology . . . would be ex-
tremely foolish and probably very un-
popular.”’

Both ICBC itself and the Office and
Technical Employees’ Union, which
represents 2,400 ICBC workers, have laun-
ched major campaigns to inform the public
of the consequences of privatization. These
campaigns, based upon studies done by
private insurance sources such as the
Toronto-based Canadian Underwriter, have
produced mountains of statistical
arguments.

With privatization, B.C. would lose at
least 1,000 head office jobs, hundreds of
regional jobs and more than $80 million in
payrolls. Small businesses such as body
shops, independent agents, suppliers and
service companies could disrupt or lose up to
$318 million in ICBC business. Obviously
this is not a minor issue to be dealt with by
secret committees convened at the minister’s
personal discretion.

Unlike private insurance companies,

“ICBC returns all of its profits and earned in-
- come (ICBC earned a profit in 1982) into the

BRITISH COLUMBIA
_ Secret committee seen planning

private selloff of ICBC 4

provincial economy. Last year ICBC in-
vested $388 million in the B.C. economy.
The corporation’s efficiency is demonstated
by its ability to pay 95 cents of every
premium dollar to its customers — unlike
private companies who average only a 74
cent payout and keep the rest for themselves.
ICBC provides auto insurance rates that are,
on average, the lowest in Canada.

ICBC also differs from private companies
in that it subsidizes 25 per cent of senior
citizen’s and handicapped customers’
Autoplan charges. The corporation is also
involved in funding programs dealing with
drinking drivers and traffic safety and main-
tains a rehabilitation department which
assists severely impaired accident victims. Of
more importance, however, is the fact that
asa Crowncorporation, ICBC must provide
public access to the corporation’s finances
and its rulings are subject to legislated appeal
procedures.

What has been the government’s response
to this opposition? Besides Hewitt’s familiar
‘no comment’’, the Socreds passed a resolu-
tion at their October convention which read:
“Be it resolved that the Insurance Corpora-
tion of British Columbia be disbanded and
all local property be sold.’? So much for the
“consultation” that Premier Bennett speaks
so fondly about.

One group has come to the defence of the
government, however, and it is — you guess-
ed it — the Fraser Institute. Michael Walker,
director of the Institute, in a speech to the

Regina Chamber of Commerce recently,
seemed to be announcing government policy
when he said that ‘‘the government owned
Insurance Corporation of B.C. will also be

privatized”’.
Fraser Institute consultant,

surance rates in Canada.

It is clear that when it comes to ICBC the
Socreds don’t even attempt to listen to ra-
tional arguments and blatantly ignore fiscal
facts. Their policies are formed in secretive
undemocratic ways that insult all British
Columbians, They are determined to cripple
an important industry merely to satsify blind
ideological zeal: and more dangerously, to
help out their private sector friends in the in-

surance establishment.

George Victor i isa a Seige staff writer =

the Solidarity Times.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 21, 1983—Page 5

Herbert
Grubel spoke glowingly about the “‘efficien-
cy’ of private insurance companies on
province-wide T.V. on Dec. 7. Grubel didn’t
mention, of course, that privatization would
enable the large Eastern-based insurance

~ cartels such as Royal, Zurich, and Commer-
cial Union to once again take huge profits
out of the pockets of British Columbians as
they did prior to 1974. It must certainly make
the Premier’s right-hand man, Patrick
Kinsella, happy to see his friends in the On-
tario corporations given the opportunity to
impress the people of B.C. with their “‘effi-
ciency”’. But it is efficiency that would see
B.C. drivers once again pay the highest in-

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