| In 1974, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) began the exclusive sale of automobile insurance to the motorists of British Columbia. Created by Dave Barrett, Robert Strachan, and the New Democratic Party government of British Columbia, the corporation was controversial and denounced by many as a socialist encroachment into the economy for purely ideological reasons. Previous studies of the ICBC have done little to dispel this notion because they focus on its operations rather than its inception. The ICBC, however, was more than just a product of New Democratic Party ideology. It had its origins in historical precedent that paved the way for greater government intervention in the economy, in questionable insurance industry ethics, in the W.A.C. Bennett government's bumbling over regulating the insurance industry, and in the failure of the industry to organize an efficient resistance to the creation of the ICBC. |
