When we received the information that led to our Red Alert blog post, we knew that something fishy was happening over at RoadSafetyBC. Immediately, we made a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for copies of all internal correspondence, memorandums, and other documents created in relation to their sudden policy change.
In this case the BC Government was using this sort of reasoning to make their policy decisions. If it wasn’t so pathetic and damaging it would be funny.
You may remember that the Red Alert was issued in December, 2014. We received the records on Thursday September 24, 2015.
Something Fishy with Roadside Justice
The timing of the response was odd. We had just – only days earlier – completed the hearing of the matter in BC Supreme Court. All of a sudden pages of material were dumped on us that answered a lot of the questions the court had that we couldn’t answer.
We’ve learned that nothing is a coincidence when dealing with Government, and the timing of the response records to our request definitely was not a coincidence. The obvious inference that we drew from this is that the Government was deliberately withholding the records until after we were done in court. They didn’t want to give us the information we needed to give a full picture of the case to the judge.
We made the request in December 2014. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act allows for a 30 day time to provide records, with extensions. But no extensions for this long are contemplated by the legislation. This was deliberate.
Does anyone else see the irony in giving oneself long extensions in the face of statutory time limits, when there is no legislation to allow it? We do.
What’s in the Records?
The records are a goldmine of interesting information. It’s a glimpse into the Orwellian dystopia that Government thinks we should be living in. Of course, none of this surprises us one bit.
The funny bits
One of the most amusing aspects of the records we found was the fact that the Government appeared to justify the policy change based on the fact that “the vast majority of drivers who apply for review of their IRP do so within the legislated seven-day timeframe.”
Well, duh. It’s a seven-day timeline. If you miss filing you can’t file. Even under the Segers framework filing wasn’t an option.
This is a particularly stupid example of a logical fallacy. In this case the BC Government was using this sort of reasoning to make their policy decisions. If it wasn’t so pathetic and damaging it would be funny.
The interesting and scary bits
What was very interesting was the tactical IRP misinformation that Government internally relies on in order to justify their position.
In determining that as a policy they could just remove the ability to apply for extensions of the seven day time limit to file for review, the Government listed three major considerations:
1. It will allow RoadSafetyBC staff to make more timely review decisions for the drivers who do apply for reviews of their IRPs within the legislated timeframe;
2. The process to review late applications was time-consuming and added to workload pressures
3. In rare cases where a driver might miss the seven-day deadline for a medical reason, they will continue to have access to a judicial review of their IRP in BC Supreme Court.
None of this is true.
There are no more timely review decisions since the change
Timely review decisions have not been seen since the change in policy. We’re nine months after the policy change now, and we are receiving just as many (if not more) extensions of the 21-day period to render a decision in these cases. You can read my blog post on this being the biggest failing of the IRP scheme.
So that’s nonsense. It would be one thing if the hundreds of files in our office with no decision were suddenly receiving decisions, and there were some answers for these clients. But the policy change was implemented, and the situation with the backlog in decisions has only worsened.
The process to review late applications was not that bad
By their own numbers in the records we obtained, there were only 550 formal Segers applications since the law came into effect in September 2010. That’s only 122 applications a year. Which works out to roughly ten per month. If you divide those ten per month among the more than ten adjudicators at RoadSafetyBC, it’s a pretty light workload.
Of those 550, according to the numbers, only 110 were granted. Which means that there were additional late reviews conducted in only 20% of cases. Work that out over the 4.5 years of the IRP regime, and that comes to a minute amount of work. It’s only two additional review hearings per month! That’s easy to coordinate amongst the RoadSafetyBC staff.
So we don’t buy that. It’s like the Government was using the fact that there were few applications to justify the removal of a legitimate process that, in at least 110 cases meant that people missed a chance they should otherwise have had. And of those people, a little under 25% turned out to be innocent after the review.
But what’s 27 innocent souls when we’re saving lives! And saving time! And money!
This isn’t justice. It’s some form of ritual human sacrifice.
Judicial Review never was and has never been available in this context
Look, I ran this argument in BC Supreme Court. It was in a case called Spence v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles), 2015 BCSC 32. You can read it here: http://canlii.ca/t/gfwsc Essentially, Mr. Spence didn’t appeal his IRP in the seven-day time period. He sought judicial review of the IRP in BC Supreme Court asking that the prohibition be quashed.
He lost.
Important to note is the dates of the hearing. I made the arguments to BC Supreme Court on December 10, 2014 which was before the policy change was announced. The Government knew, when they were crafting the policy change, that this case was to be heard. RoadSafetyBC had instructed their lawyers to go to court and argue that you can’t seek a prohibition be quashed on judicial review if you haven’t exhausted your internal remedies, i.e., if you haven’t filed for review in the first seven days.
Funnily, the decision came the same day as the Red Alert deadline. Maybe there is such a thing as a coincidence after all?
But wait. They had to give these instructions to their lawyers before the court hearing happened!
At the time they were crafting this policy and patting themselves on the back for it. At the time they were lying to themselves and to the Minister of Justice and to each other and to the public that you could still pursue a judicial review in BC Supreme Court.
Funny, these arguments never came up last week when we were fighting about the policy change in court. Probably because the Government knows it’s rubbish. But they assumed they wouldn’t be called on their tactical IRP misinformation when they announced the policy change.
It’s all about trust
Do you trust a Government that lies to you and lies to itself? We don’t. As far as we are concerned this was a carefully-crafted cover up designed to obstruct justice.
RoadSafetyBC doesn’t want you to have a hearing. They don’t want you to be able to apply for an extension even if you get knocked on the head by a coconut while waiting in line at ICBC Driver Services.
We suspect the reason why is that the more reviews that are conducted, the more IRPs that are revoked. And they don’t want the public to know about their broken system.
But that’s another blog post.