RICHMOND — MLA Steve Kooner has entered the B.C. Conservative leadership race, backing policies that would raise car insurance rates and roll back protections for people injured in accidents.
Kooner has led the B.C. Conservative attack on the province’s Enhanced Care car insurance system, despite reforms that have reduced average premiums by $500 per year, frozen basic rates for seven consecutive years, and delivered rebates averaging $640 to drivers across the province. Under the Enhanced Care system, people injured in accidents receive care without having to fight insurance companies in court, cutting legal costs and speeding up access to care.
Kooner has even falsely claimed that the government is taking money from ICBC, despite David Eby passing a law preventing that in 2020.
He isn’t alone in his views, however. The B.C. Conservatives have consistently supported cancelling the reforms that lowered rates and stabilized costs.
A 2024 study commissioned by the Alberta government shows drivers in that province pay far more than in no-fault systems like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia. A separate study by Ernst & Young shows an 18-year-old man in Alberta would pay more than double than in B.C.
Prior to enhanced care, up to a third of settlements would go to lawyers. Now, 96% of care benefits and compensation go to victims.
The B.C. NDP has also called on all leadership candidates to clearly reject bringing residential school denialist MLAs Tara Armstrong and Dallas Brodie back into caucus. Like most other leadership candidates, Kooner has not called out or otherwise addressed this denialism.
Jennifer Blatherwick, B.C. NDP MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville:
“Steve Kooner has spent much of his first year in politics pushing policies that would double car insurance rates for people. Scrapping Enhanced Care would mean skyrocketing insurance bills and fewer protections for accident victims. British Columbians simply can’t afford Steve Kooner or any of his fellow B.C. Conservative leadership candidates.”