Alberta Auto Insurance Reform: An Olive Branch
"The right of an individual to recover general damages from the wrongdoer in motor vehicle cases and to have such right adjudicated in the courts is one of the most vital hallmarks of the Canadian system of justice." – Canadian Bar Association
CURRENTLY in Alberta, if you are injured in a motor vehicle accident (MVA), regardless of whose fault the crash was (ie., even if the collision was your fault), your own auto insurance company has coverage for you under Section B of your policy to pay for medical expenses (to a maximum $50,000) and provide some income loss replacement (for up to two years post-accident). Practically nobody receives remotely close to the maximum in Section B benefits, as insurance companies typically cut people off their coverage long before the limits are exhausted. Yes, shocking as it may be to those of you born yesterday, insurance companies like to collect as much as they can in premiums and pay out as little as they can get away with in claims costs.
FOR NOW, if the Alberta auto accident is another driver's fault, in addition to those Section B benefits, you have the right under what is called tort law to full and fair financial compensation from the at-fault driver's insurance company for your pain and suffering as well as for other damages including out-of-pocket expenses, treatment costs and lost income over and above that covered by your Section B benefits.
HOWEVER, starting January 1, 2027, Premier Danielle Smith's UCP government (perhaps inspired by this Rick Mercer video) plans on eliminating approximately 99.9% of liability claims against negligent drivers while inexplicably still forcing Albertans to buy liability insurance. The government also plans to increase (on paper) the no-fault benefits available to those injured in car crashes, forcing Alberta motorists to pay for that largely illusory coverage as well. Aaron Sutherland, the main lobbyist for the auto insurance industry in Alberta (and BC), points out that actual payouts will plummet under this no-fault scheme, in which reckless drivers see their rates drop (subsidized by good drivers) and see their benefits increase (while the victims of those reckless drivers have their compensation from at-fault motorists' insurers eliminated). Well-respected Alberta economist Dr. Christoper Bruce confirms: "In effect, the government is proposing to pay for the increased payments to at-fault drivers out of the reduced payments to innocent drivers." Dr. Bruce also notes that bringing in no-fault auto insurance evidently results in more dead people on the roads, but this doesn't appear to trouble our Premier, who now has the ignominious distinction of being the most unpopular politician in Alberta. Fellow expert Alberta economist Dr. Jack Mintz concurs that no-fault auto insurance schemes reduce the incentive to drive safely, and that MVA tort law should be preserved for Albertans who suffer permanent impairment injuries.
Nevertheless, Insurance Bureau of Canada lobbyist Sutherland (who concedes that no-fault auto insurance systems are "disastrous" and that "there is little support for a move to a no-fault insurance system in Alberta") is overjoyed by the UCP government's plan, because as payouts to innocent injured Albertans plummet, insurers and brokers will be able to keep laughing all the way to the bank, just a whole lot louder. Recent reports confirm that the profit-driven private auto insurance industry ain't never had a friend like Premier Smith, as Alberta motorists have watched their insurance rates rise while insurance payouts have plummeted, even before her New Year's Day gift to insurers is set to be foisted upon unsuspecting Albertans.
How did we get here? At the 2024 UCP AGM, Danielle Smith told her party members (apparently with a straight face), "Together we will vigorously protect the rights and freedoms of Albertans." But later that month she stood at a podium, reeking of hypocrisy, as her then-Finance Minister (Nate Horner) announced that the UCP government would egregiously obliterate the rights and freedoms of Albertans injured by reckless drivers. The announcement came after the equally hypocritical Horner had dismissed no-fault as an option, vowing that "such a major change would need a mandate from Albertans."
Horner's NDP-style no-fault scheme was overwhelmingly rejected by UCP members at the party's 2025 AGM, and subsequently the Premier replaced Horner with a new Treasury Board & Finance (TBF) Minister who vowed to take a fresh look at the auto insurance reform file. This summer, at the invitation of Minister Jason Nixon's TBF bureaucrats, the painstakingly non-partisan Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association (ACTLA) most respectfully submitted that if the government is intent on proceeding with its ill-advised and staggeringly unpopular no-fault scheme, it should at least amend the scheme so as to protect the rights and freedoms of Albertans permanently injured by reckless motorists. ACTLA notes in its written submission that only 10% of those hurt by reckless drivers suffer permanent impairment injuries. However, with the 2026 UCP AGM set for the end of this month, victims' rights advocates are still waiting for any tangible results of these behind-the-scenes promises and consultations, with some of us asking nicely and some of us, not so much.
We are advised that a young, unelected but influential staffer in the TBF Minister's Office has heard from some poor, misguided soul an erroneous assertion that it would "make the Premier look weak" if, in the spirit of servant leadership, she exercised sober second thought, genuinely listened to the UCP membership and either outright scrapped this unjust, unnecessary, unconservative, unAlbertan no-fault scheme or at the very least, only ripped away the civil legal rights of 90% (rather than 99.9%) of Albertans injured by careless motorists. On the contrary, one need only look to the stellar example of the late, great Ralph Klein to see that it actually would be a sign of strength and wisdom for the current Premier to listen to reason and make an urgent U-turn on this file. In fact, our fearless firm founder wrote a column on just that point exactly one year ago in the Western Standard, titled "Time to emulate King Ralph, Premier Smith!" From that guest column: "For example, in 1998, the Klein government introduced a bill in the legislature to remove the rights of forcibly sterilized individuals to sue for compensation. King Ralph promptly instructed his Justice Minister to withdraw the bill. Similarly, in 2003, when Premier Klein’s Finance Minister proposed a plan to cap car insurance compensation for people suffering injuries just short of catastrophic, Klein’s caucus put a stop to that scheme in favour of the Minor Injury Regulation, which was implemented in 2004 and remains in place to this day."
Smith's predecessor in the Premier's chair was well aware that no-fault automobile insurance regimes in Canada typically are introduced by socialist governments (which tend to be far more ideologically uneasy than most Albertans with conservative concepts including personal responsibility and moral blameworthiness). The last government in Canada to victimize its populace by enacting no-fault auto insurance was British Columbia's NDP five and a half years ago, led by Danielle Smith's hockey buddy David Eby (photographed together here in a luxury suite at an Oilers-Canucks game along with Smith's very appreciative friend, Sam Mraiche). BC voters wisely turfed Eby's NDP from office in a general election last month in favour of the BC Conservative Party (whose leader vowed if elected Premier to repeal no-fault auto insurance, restore the civil legal rights of seriously injured BC victims of reckless drivers, and "get out of the legal profession's business").
Here in the political bizarro world of Alberta, however, it is Smith's Conservative (in name only) government pushing this socialist-style no-fault nonsense, with the NDP standing up for the rights of innocent Albertans injured by careless drivers and excoriating the UCP government's ill-advised no-fault scheme, correctly calling it out as "anticonservative" and "the absence of conservatism." NDP leader Naheed Nenshi (who may become Alberta's Premier next year if Smith doesn't give her head a shake and reverse course on no-fault forthwith) has sharply criticized the scheme as the "worst possible option." Again, to quote the actually conservative economist Dr. Jack Mintz, "A hybrid system of no-fault insurance and tort insurance is the best option that would maintain fairness as well as improve efficiency without compromising financial stability. In particular, no-fault insurance makes sense for minor claims for compensation when litigation, administration and compliance costs are more than or a large portion of the value of compensation benefits. The right-to-sue should be available for more significant claims involving death, impairment and lost income particularly."
Our Honourable Premier has a golden opportunity to extend an olive branch on the Alberta auto insurance reform issue. In advance of the UCP AGM at the end of this month, we're asking Premier Smith to self-reflect: if she’ll accept the verdict of an overwhelming majority of UCP members at last year’s AGM (who said NO to her government’s odious scheme to bring in no-fault auto insurance), then we can have a reset. At a bare minimum, the Premier should agree to stand at a podium beside her new and improved Finance Minister this month and announce that the fundamental legal rights of ALL innocent Albertans permanently injured by reckless motorists will be preserved in her government's auto insurance reforms. As Danielle Smith famously said just over 23 years ago, "If insurance reform is going to work for regular Albertans, preserving the rights and interests of victims must be the starting point.”
About the author of this blog post:
Mark McCourt (featured in this video with Danielle Smith) has been a vocal victims' rights advocate for quite some time, having advised MLAs in Alberta and MPs in Ottawa on human rights issues since the late 1980s. In 2004, he was recognized as one of Alberta's 50 Most Influential People for his leading role in protecting one of the most vital hallmarks of the Canadian system of justice during the Klein government's auto insurance reform discussions ove 20 years ago. A UCP member, he is registered to attend the governing party's Annual General Meeting in Calgary at the end of this month.