 Good morning, everybody, and welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Susie Chant, I'm BC's parliamentary secretary for accessibility and I'm the MLA for North Vancouver Seymour. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we are meeting today on the territories of the Squamish and the Slewa-tooth nations. And I'm very pleased to be here with Premier Ebe, Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. To start things off this morning, it is my honour to introduce your Premier, David Ebe. Thank you. Good morning, everybody, joining you today on the territory of the Squamish, and Slewa-tooth people, and it's a privilege to be here with you today. It's great to be back at the North Vancouver headquarters of ICBC. I spent a bit of time here in the old days. And I want to recognize Mike Farnworth, the minister responsible for ICBC. I'm Mike Farnworth, the minister responsible for ICBC. And I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate Phil Yong. He's the CFO here at ICBC. Now, Phil was recently selected as Business Invaders 2022 CFO of the Year in the publicly accountable category. A wonderful recognition for Phil and for ICBC of the turnaround work that has gone on here and made possible by the whole country. BC is a wonderful place to live. And as a result in the first two quarters of this year , we welcome more than 70,000 people from all across Canada and around the world to come and live in this beautiful province. That is the fastest rate of population growth in our province in 60 years. Now, the people who move here, the people who choose to live in British Columbia make us stronger. But while BC is a desirable place to live , people are choosing to come here , it's also an expensive place to live for too many people. And global inflation is really making them out more difficult. Over the last few months I've been all across the province talking to people about issues that matter to them. And one of the key things they talk about is the cost of living here in British Columbia. And I remember being at the ICBC headquarters in the bad old days . I remember meeting with a man who bought an old car for his granddaughter so she could get to work and school. She was in an area where transit wasn't great. And her rates had gone up quite dramatically. And he was incredibly concerned that she couldn't afford her insurance and as a result would have to give up her job. I know that having a vehicle is incredibly important for many, many people across our province. And the affordability of car insurance is a key part of owning a car. And we're working to build a British Columbia where nobody is left behind. Where people don't have to choose between having a job and not based on their car insurance rates. And it is all about choices. We saw the approach just six years ago in this province. Tax cuts were going to those at the top. The MSP premiums had doubled. There were tolls on the bridges when it came to ICBC. Instead of fixing the Crown Corporation decisions were being made to sell off the budget. The budgets were commissioned that then chapters were redacted from so the public didn't get to see what was recommended to fix the Crown Corporation. And the government was using ICBC as an ATM pulling money out of the corporation to pretend that budgets were balanced. We couldn't afford that kind of approach then and we sure can't afford it now. When we took office we got down to work. We reversed the giveaways to the top 2% and started bringing down costs for everyone. We got rid of MSP. We got rid of the tolls on the bridge. We got down to work. Just a couple of weeks ago another announcement reducing child care fees for families across the province. Hundreds of dollars every month for young families and we worked together closely with ICBC, many of the people here in the room to transform that Crown Corporation to deliver lower rates and better benefits for drivers and average savings for British Columbians of $400 every year. There's so much more to do. And we need to do it urgently. While we've made progress we know that many families are struggling with the costs of everyday life. Budgets are stretched right now. That's why the very first thing I did as premier was to introduce new cost of living credits to give immediate help to everybody but especially low and middle income earners who are the most vulnerable to price increases. So in that spirit today I'm pleased to announce that thanks to the reforms we made that have turned around our Crown Corporation there will be no increases to ICBC's for the next two years. This will help keep insurance affordable for British Columbians at a time when people are facing significant cost pressures. This marks five straight years in a row with no rate increases and some of the highest rebates in Canada. I believe that BC should be a place where everyone can build a good life. Where you can afford a decent home quality childcare and all of your other bills. Keeping costs down for people is key to building a stronger, better British Columbia and a better British Columbia. The building firm on ICBC basic rates is one way that we are doing that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth. Thank you Suzy. Good morning everyone. I also want to acknowledge that I'm speaking to you from the territory of the Squamish and Sayutooth nations. I wanted to be here on their territories. I want to be here on their territories. And that includes for millions of vehicle owners. Today marks another milestone in these efforts with ICBC set to apply to the BC Utilities Commission for no increase to basic insurance rates. With its approval, drivers in British Columbia will continue to benefit from some of the lowest rates on vehicle insurance in the country. And with this latest action, basic insurance rates will now be at their lowest level since 2014. This was validated as recently as last week with the release of an Ernst and Young report that found auto insurance in British Columbia is more affordable than in provinces with private insurance. Government has directed that ICBC's basic rate application cover two years instead of the standard one year. Helping to provide predictability on these basic insurance rates to at least 2025. Beyond premium savings, ICBC's enhanced care coverage continues to provide people with significant improved care and recovery benefits if they are injured in a crash regardless of fault. Providing the care and financial support immediately after the crash, eliminating the years it may take to get their compensation. We continue to work on making life more affordable for all British Columbians. And together with ICBC, we are delivering on that commitment today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Minister . On a personal level, I just want to say how proud I am to be here with all of you today to hear about how we are working to make life more affordable for people in British Columbia. With that, I wish to thank everyone for joining us. And we are happy to take questions now. For reporters on the line, please press star one to enter the queue. Our first question is on the phone from Richard Zussman, Global News. Premier, we get enough in-box information from people concerned about no-fault insurance. There was a story we did just last week about a senior who was seriously injured in a crash when his car was hit by a stolen car. What do you say to those people who are not getting what they believe is fair to the new system and are now watching you freeze rates for people who are not impacted severely by these crashes? Well, it's absolutely vital for British Columbians to know that we are going to manage this Crown Corporation responsibly so that they have the resources available to ensure good benefits to British Columbians that are injured in a crash. Now, we are going to see continual growing pains from this new system. There are going to be issues that we need to address. You will see in the mandate letter for Minister Farnworth that I have included particular attention to the issue of pedestrians and people who are not getting the attention and support they need. Car insurance is a human enterprise. There will always be challenges with different files. However, overall, British Columbians need to have confidence that their Crown Corporation is responsibly managed financially, that they are getting good benefits at affordable rates, and every third-party evaluation that is being done of ICBC is validating our approach . It is important to know that under the old system, when people were in a collision, they would wait up to two years or more. There are, in fact, tens of thousands of claims still waiting under the old system for resolution. These are people who had collisions before the reforms. It is unacceptable that people wait for benefits like that. They had to borrow money from the government while they were waiting for their claims paying high interest rates. They had to pay all the administration costs of their litigation. And then at the end of it, the lawyer would take a third of their award that was supposed to be money for them to get better. Unsurprisingly, that profoundly broken system almost bankrupted ICBC and put us into the jurisdiction of private insurers, which we know now, charge higher rates . Every British Columbia should know that our Crown Corporation is being managed responsibly with their best interests in mind. When we identify issues, we will work closely with the CEO and his team to address those issues. ≫ Richard, do you have a follow-up? ≫ In the last quarter, we saw losses that ICBC explained largely due to a drop-off in investment expectations. We are seeing hard times ahead in terms of the economy. How can you be so confident in freezing rates now when we don't know what the economic picture looks like ahead and are you not just using ICBC as a political tool here as you criticize the previous government for doing so often? ≫ Richard, you will remember that we passed a law that makes it illegal for government to take money from ICBC into our provincial budgets. This is an application to the utilities commission for a rate freeze for a two-year period. Part of that includes adding money to the reserves for ICBC to make sure that the money is there when we need it. For many years, government drew down those reserves to crisis levels to pretend that things were okay at ICBC instead of making the difficult decisions to make sure that ICBC worked properly for British Columbians. We are not doing that. We took the difficult decisions. We are doing that in a couple of ways. Better benefits for British Columbians, lower rates and we are building the reserves at ICBC to make sure that buffer is there for when times are more challenging. I am really proud of what the team at ICBC here has done. I am really proud and grateful for British Columbians for supporting those necessary reforms because now they are seeing the benefits and they will continue to see the benefits of strong public insurer. Thank you. To the phone for our next question from Rob Shaw, check news. Hi, premier. Just to follow on that, ICBC is projected to lose 298 million. This year it is down in incomes 625 million in the last four months. I am trying to figure out how it can not ask for a rate increase when it is projected to lose money this year. I will take a bit of this and I will pass it over to Nicholas Timenez who is the CEO of ICBC. It is important to recognize that ICBC has to report even when they haven't sold investments, the rising and falling value of those investments. British Columbians will know that stock markets and other investment values have taken a significant hit in this global inflationary environment that we are seeing right now. It is important to know that the ability to offer low rates and good benefits and be financially sustainable is core to our government's priorities and ICBC's priorities. That is why it is important that ICBC be able to meet the expectations of British Columbians but also add to reserves to make sure those buffers are there in good times and in bad. I will turn it over to Nicholas Timenez to talk a little bit about the corporation's financial situation. To our Q2 report, you will see that the business itself made $117 million in the quarter. You have to kind of separate how is the business running versus how are the investment markets treating our $20 billion investment portfolio. There will be moments where we make more money than we planned in the investment portfolio and you would have seen that in the last two years and there will be moments where the investment markets have an impact on the value of that portfolio and accounting rules require us to reflect that on our financial statements. The very separate and apart from that is how the business is doing and the core of the business is doing well. So the rates reflect what we anticipate into the future independent of the investment markets per se that we have seen in this last year. And our judgment is we have a team of actuaries who have done the work and do the math that BCUC will review and judge our math that we are doing today. Rob, do you have a follow-up? Sure, I understand that. I'm just looking at the second quarter numbers from the government that shows your vehicle growth estimates are off. Your current claims costs from just the budget are like 15% higher. Your unpaid claims balance is up. And I'm just I understand the investment part of it but it looks all the metrics that were given financially in these updates look like they are either worse or slower than just a few months ago. So again, how are you confident with these numbers that you don't need a rate increase for the next two years separate from the investment stuff? Well, again, you need to remember that when we project rates, we're looking forward, not back. And what we've seen in Q1 and Q2 of this year is reflected in the many thousands of pages in our filing we are putting forward an outlook of what we anticipate into the future. There's a lot of uncertainty in the driving environment and investment markets, supply chains that is currently true and yet in the future a lot of that will change. Interest rates will come down. Supply chain issues will resolve themselves. We will see vehicle and repair scenarios return to more normal patterns. So we are projecting a future that's not rosy that accounts for the fact that there's a lot of volatility. But we are very prudent, very cautious and we always have been and this filing will lay bare essentially that conservatism and that caution, which is again allowing us to do what we're doing around rates for the next two years. To the phone for our next question from Mira Bain, CBC. Mr. Premier, since we're talking about affordability is government considering reversing changes to how PST is charged on privately sold used cars that took effect down on October 1st? No, we're not. Okay, and any update on where ICBC headquarters is moving from North Vancouver? It's this is a business decision that ICBC will be taking. We need to make sure that public assets like ICBC headquarters are working for British Columbians and that ICBC is working efficiently. I'll just check and see if the CEO has any updates to share on that process. We don't have any updates to share at this time. But a number of bridges have to be crossed before ICBC headquarters is sold, including determining where ICBC is planning. Also, we have First Nations engagement consultations as well as engagements with folks on the North Shore to make sure that this community has served ICBC for so long, benefits from whatever ends up on this site. To the phone for our next question from Aliza Yousda, City News. Hi there, Premier. Wondering about just you making this announcement before you've actually had the approval from the regulator where it can look like you're directing the regulator versus then making an independent decision. So it's important that the BC Utilities Commission fulfills its role of reviewing ICBC's numbers, making sure that the public interest is protected and I have confidence in their ability to do that. I'm also very appreciative of ICBC's work to put together this very significant filing to make sure that people can go through those that have the interest in going through those until the actuarial projections to see the decisions that were made and to lay those bare for British Columbians. It is an important process. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I'm just recording the buffers and reserves you have at ICBC. What if there was a catastrophic event, another, you know, like the snow bombs falling or ice bombs falling on the bridge or the massive flood or something that caused a great deal of damage out of the norm. Is there enough buffer to cover that without having a rate increase? Thanks. I'll turn this question over to Nicholas, but I will note that making sure that British Columbians are prepared for an increased number of natural disasters often linked with climate change is part of core government mandate right now. We have a new ministry. Minister Ma is here. The minister responsible for this ministry and other areas for government, across government to make sure that we're prepared for more forest fires, floods , other climate-related disasters both to mitigate those where we can through forest practices, for example, and to respond quickly and to ensure that damage is limited where we can by dealing with infrastructure making sure it's resilient and ready for climate impacts. With that, I'll turn the specific question over to the minister. What is the plan for unexpected insurance hits? He's smiling. That's a good sign. Nicholas. I would say two things. One, we build capital and that's part of this filing in order to account for scenarios that you can't predict. The other thing that we do is we buy reinsurance. So we go to the markets in London and we go against things like catastrophic risks, floods, earthquakes. So we feel that we are very well set up to handle any scenario that comes our way. Our next question is on the phone from Von Palmer, Vancouver Sun. Good morning and thank you for doing this. I hear you saying that you're applying for a two-year rate freeze. Does that mean that if the utilities commission turns it down , you won't be doing the cabinet won't be doing what it did with the ICBC rate in the spring and the BC Hydro credit in November which is ordering the utilities commission to approve it. No questions asked. The utilities commission has a critical role here to make sure that British Columbians see the assumptions and see the work that ICBC has put into projections for the next two years that has led to a request a 0% rate increase for the next two years. Predictable auto insurance rates are vital for many British Columbians across the province and we know we are in uncertain times. You heard the CEO talk about some of those challenges we've seen around supply chain, global inflation and so on. So the commission has an important role to play here. We will of course review any decision made by the commission and we're looking at providing transparency and accountability for our Crown corporations to British Columbians. Do you have a follow-up? I didn't hear you say that you won't use cabinet power to overrule the commission which is what the government did with the rebate in the spring and what you yourself did Premier with the BC Hydro credit in November. Our first priority which includes the decision to send this to the Utilities Commission for review is to ensure that British Columbians are supported through this time. So we're very grateful for the Utilities Commission for doing the important work around transparency on this and for rendering their opinion on this application. We'll review that when we receive it. British Columbians should know that our first priority is making sure that life is more affordable for them. Our next question is on the phone from Bindur Sajan, CTV. There's a new poll out that says the NDP government is being heavily criticized for things like helping people with affordability and health care. Do you think that this rate freeze goes far enough and what else do you think that you might need to do to convince British Columbians that you are actually tackling affordability? I think for British Columbians like people across the world right now they're seeing rising costs and also provinces across Canada what's been described as a perfect storm on our health care system. That's why our government is focused on these key priority areas for British Columbians around health care making sure they can access the health care they need when they need it. Incredibly important work needing to continue there and to make sure that we're expanded on affordability. Addressing issues like today's announcement around housing affordability major costs that British Columbians are facing. I don't think British Columbians expect that the province of BC is going to be able to solve the issue of global inflation. But they do expect that we're going to take the steps to support them wherever we can with the cost of everyday life and we're going to do that work. So British Columbians' priorities are important. Thank you. Thank you. Our final question today goes to Amy Smart, Canadian Press. Hi there. This is along the lines of some of the questions that have been asked but I'm still a little unclear on if you do need more money not in the case of a catastrophic event where you might have reinsurance but some of these issues don't resolve themselves supply chains and all that. So in addition there's a requirement that money be added to the reserves of ICBC so there's money there when you need it. Is the backup plan to draw from tax dollars or what is the backup plan for or do you go let ICBC go into debt or what's the contingency plan? So the bottom line is ICBC needs to be self-supporting. The rates that they charge need to cover expenses at ICBC. British Columbians will know that for a significant number of years that was not true. They were losing more than a billion dollars in a single year. That is not the case now. ICBC is making money on its core business. They are able to make an application to the Utilities Commission for a rate freeze based on actuarial work that will be reviewed by the Utilities Commission and is based on their best predictions for what's coming up. The reserves are in place at ICBC that support that core operation of the business and maybe I'll turn it over to Nicholas to talk about how reserves are used as well. The most important thing to consider not just true of ICBC but any insurance company is you have an investment portfolio that allows you to set aside money for claims you're going to pay in the future. In addition or built into that we have money that's just set aside in the event of unexpected unforeseen loss. So we have lots of layers of protection built into how we run the company and this is true of every insurance company. So we feel very confident that we have appropriate conservatism built into forward looking projections and all the different elements of the financial background that creates stability in the company. So it's generally in good shape right now. Amy do you have a follow up? No that's fine thanks. That's all of our questions stay. Thanks everyone. Thanks very much everyone.