British Columbia 2020 Provincial Election Party Report Card
Under Our 174 Year Old Wrongful Death Laws, British Columbia is the Last of all the Provinces, Including the Yukon, Where it’s Still FREE to Kill Children, Seniors, and the Disabled, With No Access to Justice for Surviving Family Members, or Financial Accountability to Wrongdoers.
In BC, only those who meet the discriminatory criteria of being both a breadwinner with dependents have “worth” under the law. No value = no available judgement amount to cover court costs for surviving family members to access truth, justice and to hold wrongdoers accountable. When it’s FREE to kill in BC, there is no incentive for corrective action to prevent wrongful deaths in the future. Families are left with a burning sense of injustice, and no ability to right a wrong.
FAILING GRADE – F – Despite numerous meetings, letters, and telephone calls with many MLAs and the Attorney General David Eby, the BC NDP have stated that they have no intention to modernize our wrongful death laws following the 2020 BC Provincial Election.
John Horgan has openly stated in a press conference that the BC NDP are ensuring that they do not put the province under any liability when they wrongfully kill the citizens of the province.
As of 2020, the BC NDP have also passed legislation that has repealed victim rights further through the motor vehicle No-Fault legislation (the BC NDP and ICBC have named this under the Orwellian doublespeak term “Enhanced Care Coverage”). Victims of motor vehicle accidents no longer will receive pain & suffering compensation, or access to legal representation to advocate for their care, recovery, and compensation.
The BC NDP have proven that they do not have an interest in respecting the rights and dignity of the individual, especially with respect to victim rights and access to justice. The citizens of the province will continue to become even further subordinate to the political bureaucracy and victims will fall through the cracks. Therefore we have rated the BC NDP with a FAILING GRADE – F.
GRADE – C+ – The BC United were aware of the need to modernize BC’s wrongful death laws when they took control of the provincial government in 2001. In 2011, Liberal MLA from West Vancouver, Ralph Sultan, proposed legislation that was a duplicate of Alberta’s legislation (not that great, but still better than BC’s current legislation). ICBC intervened, gave the Liberal government (inflated) numbers of how ICBC would be impacted. This data was not made available for public scrutiny. In turn, the BC Liberal government decided to not undertake this necessary legislative modernization and were unresponsive until recent meetings in 2019.
In 2019, the BC Liberal Party expressed interest and a willingness to pursue legislative modernization. Critic for the Attorney General, MLA Michael Lee has made himself available for numerous meetings and telephone calls in review of the Family Compensation Act.
Further, the BC United opposed the victim rights diminishing legislation known as No-Fault, which the BC NDP passed in the Summer legislative session of 2020.
In October of 2020, the BC United have released a statement:
“The BC United believe wrongful death legislation in B.C. is badly outdated and it is time to update it, as Ontario did many years ago, to ensure B.C. families receive the appropriate level of support and compensation they deserve in the unfortunate event they lose a loved one as a result of someone else’s fault.”
While the BC United failed to modernize previously when they have had control of the government, they have since shown interest in modernization, and have opposed BC NDP No-Fault legislation that repeals victim rights further. Therefore we give the BC United a GRADE of C+.
FAILING GRADE – F – Further results pending – October 16, 2020 update – we spoke to Nicole Duncan, candidate for Oak-Bay Gordon Head who was very receptive to our Society’s calls for legislative modernization. She stated that this issue needs to be resolved promptly and would like to carry the torch within her party to do so. She stated that she would talk to party leader Sonia Furstenau to get a better indication with respect to where the party stands on this issue.
Our concerns however remain with respect to the fact that the Green Party supported and voted for the victim rights diminishing BC NDP legislation known as No-Fault.
Pending further updates, in the interim we are required to retain the status of the Green Party of BC holding a FAILING GRADE – F.
GRADE A+ – The BC Libertarian Party of BC is the first party in the history of the province to publicly commit to modernizing BC’s 174-year old wrongful death laws as part of its party’s campaign platform.
The party has invited our Society into to numerous party meetings with leadership to discuss and become acquainted with the issues. They fully support the implementation of the BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society’s Wrongful Death Accountability Act.
They also oppose the ICBC No-Fault motor vehicle legislation and have put together a comprehensive plan to reform ICBC – converting it to a member-owned and operated co-op and having it compete in the marketplace with other private insurers. They do not believe that a crown corporation should have any influence with respect to repressing and diminishing victim rights, accountability, and justice in the province of BC. Therefore, we issue the BC Libertarian Party a GRADE of A+.
The information on this page has been prepared by the BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society. We are a BC registered non-profit incorporated in 2015 and operated by the families who’ve experienced the wrongful death of a loved one and were denied access to justice under our 175 year old wrongful death laws. We are 100% reliant on unpaid volunteers and are funded by the family members of our Society and individual donations from the public. Prior to 2015, we were known as the Wrongful Death Law Reform Working Group.
