The Minor Injury Regulation (MIR) was implemented on October 1, 2004 by the Alberta government under Premier Ralph Klein. The Finance Minister back then, Patricia Nelson, who had a high-risk driving son at home at the time, was looking to bring down auto insurance rates for folks like her dear Troy. Insurance lobbyists assured her that premiums (especially for accident-prone young male drivers) were so darned pricey because the insurance industry was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and needed the steep rates just to make ends meet. While the insurance lobby's yarn was in fact a blatant lie, as quite evidently insurers actually were raking in all-time high record profits in the billions of dollars, Mrs. Nelson wasn't about to let the facts get in the way of her cretinous crusade to grant auto insurance corporations relief from their responsibility to fairly compensate innocent Albertans injured by careless drivers in motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) for their pain and suffering.
A year prior to implementing the MIR, Finance Minister Nelson pitched to government caucus (specifically, to those PC MLAs on the Standing Policy Committee for Economic Development and Finance) a plot to gut pain and suffering compensation for injuries just short of catastrophic. However, the day before the EDF SPC voted on the Minister’s recommendation, Calgary Herald columnist Danielle Smith (now Alberta’s Premier) absolutely excoriated Nelson's proposal in a scathing article titled, “Victims first: caps on injury must be dropped”. Pro-tip, gentle readers: Ms. Smith’s scathing article is linked to this blog post. It’s worth reading for a number of reasons, including that as indicated above, she is now Premier of Alberta. So kindly take a couple of minutes out of your busy schedule, click on the link, and read her column.
The day after Danielle’s Smith’s scathing column was published in the Calgary Herald, Minister Nelson’s diabolical plot was defeated by her caucus colleagues and ultimately was replaced by a proposed regulation (which became the MIR) capping compensation for sprains, strains and whiplash injuries that heal relatively quickly, ie., within about 12 weeks of a motor vehicle accident. As a matter of law and medicine, soft-tissue injuries that persist longer than 3-6 months by definition evolve into chronic pain, which is not (and, in accordance with unanimous rulings of the Alberta Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada, cannot constitutionally be) captured by the MIR’s compensation cap.
Having successfully enacted a regulation which helped slash both injured victim compensation and insurance premiums in the province for the young and the reckless, Pat Nelson did Albertans a long overdue favour and retired from politics the month after the MIR took effect. In a subsequent submission to the Auto Insurance Rate Board (AIRB), Alberta's Facility Association noted that underage drivers with two at-fault accidents in the previous three years had seen rate reductions of over 80% after the MIR and associated “reform” regulations were passed. Not surprisingly, automobile accident fatality rates in Alberta spiked by over 20% in the year following implementation of the MIR. In July 2009, Alberta Transportation confirmed that traffic collisions in the province increased, both in absolute numbers and on a per-capita basis, each and every year from 2004 to 2008. Oh well, right Pat?
Another good reason to read Ms. Smith’s scathing Calgary Herald column on Tory tort deform is that 20 years later, our UCP government is considering further changes to Alberta’s auto insurance system. As indicated in our firm founder’s most recent guest column in the Edmonton Journal (btdubs, another link obviously worth clicking on and reading, please and thank you), a handful of insurance policy bureaucrats in current Treasury Board & Finance Minister Nate Horner’s department (who seem to lack most Albertans’ common sense respect for basic concepts like justice, accountability, rights and responsibilities) are keen to see Premier Smith’s administration replace MVA tort law with a staggeringly unpopular no-fault regime in an odious, ill-advised, short-sighted "rights for rates" swap. While such a patently asinine and perhaps politically suicidal move probably would result in a spike in car crashes, injuries and deaths (much like in the years after the MIR was implemented), maybe certain TBF bureaucrats might consider that tragic consequence to be “acceptable collateral damage”. But spoiler alert, beancounter bureaucrats: as any auto insurer will tell you, road carnage results in rising rates, which kinda defeats the purpose of a pinheaded plot to implement a slimy, socialist-style no-fault scheme. Alright? OK.
Late last week, the AIRB's actuarial consultants released their 2024 Annual Review Final Report, confirming that auto insurance industry profits skyrocketed last year due to rising premiums and falling claims costs. The report also revealed that while the average Albertan's basic auto insurance premium has spiked by 23.5% from 2019 (the year the Jason Kenney-led UCP became Alberta's government) to 2023, the average injury claims cost per insured vehicle has dropped by over 6% during that same period. In light of this report, and with all "due" respect, insurance lobbyists and their bureaucrat buddies can cut the crap already about rates rising due to bodily injury claims costs -- Albertans aren't buying the BS.
Our firm has offered the UCP government nuanced, conservative, "Made-in-Alberta" solutions within the existing tort system to help keep auto insurance rates affordable for good drivers, in thoughtful blog posts written by our principal counsel and published way back in January and February of this year. Go ahead and compare Mr. McCourt's credentials on this topic with those of the injudicious bureaucrats advising Minister Horner on this file. Not gonna lie, ladies and gents: there is no contest.
Albertans will watch with keen interest in the coming months to see whether or not lawyers in cabinet such as Mickey Amery and Brian Jean, and in the Premier’s Office such as Premier Smith’s executive director Rob Anderson, step up and discharge their solemn duty to protect the traditional civil legal rights of innocent victims (mostly women and children) wrongfully injured by negligent motorists. Stay tuned, severely normal Albertans!
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