Dear Editor:

A leaked 203-page Ernst and Young report claims to require drastic measures and a 30 per cent rate hike in order to keep ICBC operating.

They could have saved 202 pages. You never know where this softwood lumber thing will go.

On one page, the report could have stated that the solution to British Columbia’s auto insurance problem would be to turn auto insurance over to the private insurance companies.

Currently, a number of necessities of life are supplied by private industry with no shortages or no gouging.

Food, for example, is not sold by the government. Likewise, gasoline is distributed and sold by private companies. Clothing. Houses. Electronics. Add to the list.

Why is it that other important services such as healthcare, education and car insurance are so important that the government has to be involved and cause them to be overpriced and poor value for money?

The answer is government greed and union greed.

These days it is pretty easy to go online and get an auto insurance quote.

In Alberta, for example, where insurance is entirely private.

Same car, same driver, same coverage. However, it is generally half the price of exactly the same coverage in B.C.

And the private companies are competing for your business and would like to keep you as a happy customer, not the case with a government monopoly.

It also doesn’t help that ICBC siphons off profits to give to the government. Or that they have a surplus of highly paid, and benefited, and pensioned, union civil servants running around bumping into each other and looking for new ways to collect and spend more money.

And it doesn’t help that ICBC has scores of highly paid lawyers burning up court time and settlements on minor injury claims.

The average ICBC cost for a minor fender bender is now over $65,000. That is 365 per cent since 2000.

And what does Ernst and Young suggest? Not efficiency. They suggest hammering on B.C. drivers even more.

There’s also talk of a return to photo radar or the born-again name – Automated Speed Cameras. There are the same cameras that proved to be so ineffective in most other jurisdictions in North America, and are on the way out.

But the NDP will be unable to resist the lure of more cash.

And we also know there will be more police for random roadside stops, just to put a damper on that nice evening out with your wife.

There will also be higher rates for higher priced cars, even with a good driving record – just to keep us all driving that 1998 Toyota we deserve.

And more red light cameras that can issue two tickets at once.

ICBC helped the B.C. Liberals lose the last election.

The only good news is that ICBC will help the NDP lose the next one.

Jim Thornton

Osoyoos, B.C.