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Eby also admitted the critics are right about British Columbians paying too much for auto insurance.

“I agree with British Columbians who feel that our insurance is still too expensive, that we pay too much,” he told reporters Wednesday.

But he rejected calls to privatize ICBC.

“We will not be going in that direction,” said Eby, confirming the New Democrats are still wedded to the company they created as a government-owned auto insurance monopoly almost 50 years ago. Yet he acknowledged that ICBC, with its current financial state and rate profile, is scarcely an argument for public auto insurance.

“When you look across the country at other public insurers, they’re delivering insurance much more affordably,” said Eby. “So we have additional reforms to control some of the legal costs that are associated with our system in B.C. that we will be announcing on a go-forward basis.”

But having conceded all that, he proceeded to announce three reforms that were of little consequence in the drive to bring down premiums.

Step one was the promise of a fairness commissioner to act as a kind of ombudsperson for rate payers who wish to complain about — well about anything other than rates. Or settlements.

Those will still be handled by the independent utilities commission, in the case of rates, and by the courts and the civil litigation tribunal in the case of settlements.

Turns out ICBC already has a fairness office, though by Eby’s account it is a well-kept secret.