The province of B.C. is facing a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit for allegedly using ICBC to tax people for healthcare costs illegally.
Lawyer J. Scott Stanley represents the plaintiffs.
“If this lawsuit is successful, it could mean money for anybody that has bought insurance from ICBC going back to 1973,” he told Global News.
The BC Supreme Court suit alleges that “for decades, ICBC has been making payments to the provincial Medical Services Plan contrary to law.”
“Those payments have cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driven up insurance costs unnecessarily and unlawfully,” it claims.
Stanley said the province is taking money from insurance to pay for something tax dollars are already covering.
“Whatever the government says, the answer already is (it has) gotten that money from the federal government because all British Columbians have already paid that when they’ve paid their federal taxes,” he said.
The case has been making its way through the courts since 2020.
Under then-Attorney General David Eby, the province tried to stop the legal action using legislation.
Asked about the BC Supreme Court decision certifying the class action, Eby defended ICBC’s payments to the province.
“There was a technical problem with the laws around MSP and ICBC that we addressed, and we’ll make our arguments in court,” he said at an unrelated event on Monday.
No trial dates have been set.
Preliminary financial results show ICBC will make a net income of $1.5 billion dollars this year.
Some of that money could one day end up back in the pockets of British Columbians if the case is successful.
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