We’ve held all along that the BC Government was never interested in fairness with the IRP scheme. All along they were creating an unfair IRP system while making public declarations that they were interested in advancing fairness. But it’s all a lie. Fairness has nothing to do with it.
The BC Government has never been interested in creating a fair IRP system. This is just another example. But it’s not the best example. There’s more.
Bad government behaves badly
Consider this. As of today, RoadSafetyBC and ICBC will not give you YOUR DISCLOSURE in your Immediate Roadside Prohibition case unless you pay them first. We’re serious.
It’s a legal process that has incredibly harsh implications for you. They are the holders of the disclosure. But as of today (officially effective December 21, 2015 because they’re closed Sunday) they’ve decided that they won’t give you YOUR disclosure until you pay pay pay!
It’s all about the money with these *!#*%
What happened was a few months back we explained all of the reasons that you should get your disclosure before you apply for review. We put a video up. We explained that it is your right to have this material because they are Government-held documents about you that specifically impact you.
As a result of our video, lawyers around the province and individuals too wrote to demand their disclosure. Often they were writing after the fact — even weeks after the 7 days expired because they wanted to know what records the Government held about them.
It’s your material and you’ve got a right to it. But the more people who get their IRP disclosure, the more people who will then fight their IRP because they can see that the evidence in their case is garbage. So the Government was of the belief that more people would dispute their IRP if people continued to follow our advice and get their disclosure first.
The Government doesn’t want people to dispute their IRPs. They have carefully crafted information on the internet, at ICBC and in the IRP documents themselves that have the effect of discouraging people from fighting. The reason they don’t want people to fight is that they don’t want people to win. It embarrasses them that Acumen Law succeeded in over 70 IRP reviews in June. They hate that.
Freedom of Information
Information that the Government has about you should be free. In British Columbia that ends in a few hours. You can see the announcement on RoadSafetyBC’s website. Here is an excerpt:
Effective December 21, 2015 RoadSafetyBC will no longer be providing disclosure documents outside of the review process. Only applicants that have applied for a review of a driving prohibition, vehicle impoundment, or licensing decision, and paid their hearing fees will receive disclosure documents. ICBC will provide the applicant with all disclosure documents available when the application for review is submitted. If RoadSafetyBC receives new disclosure materials after the application for review is submitted, RoadSafetyBC will disclose all of the new documents to the applicant or their representative.
If you do not wish to file an application for review, but would like to obtain documents related to your administrative sanction, you may file a request under section 5 of FOIPPA to obtain the documentation. You may submit a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) application through the Ministry of Labour, Citizen’s Services and Open Government. Information on this process can be found here or you can phone the Information Access Operations office at 250-387-1321 for further information.
Creating an unfair IRP system
What this means is that they will not give you your disclosure within the 7-day window unless you pay!
This is a full-on attempt to impede people from getting their disclosure, assessing their case, looking for evidence and fighting their IRP.
The BC Government has never been interested in creating a fair IRP system. This is just another example. But it’s not the best example. There’s more.
Dropping a bombshell
You may have noticed the sudden and unexpected announcement that Christy Clark, in mid December and for no ostensible reason, was splitting the Justice Minister’s job in two and restoring the office of the Solicitor General. Without any explanation, the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles was put under someone new. No other cabinet positions switched and no explanation was given.
We’ll tell you now, we’re the reason. In the course of doing what we do, we acquired disclosure that blows the entire IRP review scheme apart. We can’t tell you any details about it just yet. It’s likely that we’ll be in court in less than two weeks to get a ruling allowing us to make it public. It will absolutely blow your mind. It will blow the court’s mind. But more on that later.
Dealing with an unfair IRP system
If this is justice, our justice system is crumbling.
The only way to deal with an unfair IRP system is to go to court. So we’re suing.
Before the end of the year we will expect to start three massive actions to take on the unfair IRP system. One of them will be to sue the Government for refusing to disclose our client’s IRP evidence upon the request of the client or their lawyer. We’ve been working on that for a few weeks already and we’re just waiting for the first affected clients to phone our office.
But the joke is on the Government. Because of Kyla’s big win in Stenner, (the new evidence case), everyone should now file for a review in any event.
You see now, if you don’t file for review, and your lawyer finds new evidence at a later date that shows you’re innocent, then you’re screwed.
On the other hand, if you pay the $200 and file for review, you’re setting yourself up to win — if not at the original hearing, then later on with new evidence.
Despite this, we’re pressing on. And from our perspective, we’re just getting warmed up. We can’t tell you all of what we’re doing because the people in charge at the BC Government read our site every day. And as you’ve probably gathered if you’re a careful reader of our blog, we only ever reveal the tip of the iceberg as far as material that we’ve collected.
We collect and save material that we use to help our clients and to take on the scheme. In our experience the Government is tactical and unscrupulous. We’re trying to succeed by being tactical, tough and ethical.
We’re cutting our fees, costs
It’s clear that this new RoadSafetyBC policy is designed to discriminate against poorer people. The rich won’t be affected at all. This is one of the big problems with the IRP scheme in the first place because for the wealthy an IRP is no big deal. For poor people this is simply designed to make it harder to fight an IRP. This is just part of the BC Government’s plan to impede access to justice for the poor.
We don’t know what other lawyers charge but clients always tell us that, aside from being the most successful, we’re also relatively inexpensive. On some things we’re about to get cheaper.
To ensure that as many people dispute their IRPs as possible (and succeed on review) we’re going to reduce our fees on certain aspects of the review. We’re going to attend ICBC to file for review for our clients if they want us to do that for them. We worked through the numbers last week and we think we can afford to take a cut to protect our clients from an increasingly unfair IRP system.
We can do it. We’re tough.