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Now premiums are on the rise again – up 2% in the first quarter of 2018 show figures posted by a government agency Friday. According to industry estimates, rates are poised to increase at least 5% this year.

And once again, before an election, Liberals are promising rate relief is on the way.

It’s been a pattern with the Liberals.

Promise to fix auto rates before an election. Break the promise after the election.

Let’s ride the wayback machine to 2003.

Auto insurance rates had risen 10% since 1996 and drivers frustrated by increasingly unaffordable premiums were screaming.

Dalton McGuinty promised Ontario Liberals would freeze auto insurance rates – and cut them by 10% within 90 days of being in office.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch

He never did.

McGuinty also promised to crack down on fraud.

He didn’t, not meaningfully. Then in 2010, following a rise in accident injury claims, the Liberals dramatically cut benefits to accident victims at the behest of the auto insurance industry, padding insurance company profits by $1.6 billion in 2011.

Fast forward to the 2013 when Kathleen Wynne was Premier.

Wynne struck a deal with the NDP to cut auto insurance rates 15% by August 2015 in exchange for NDP support of her minority government’s budget bill. She repeated the 15% rate cut promise prior to the 2014 election campaign.

After winning a majority in that election, Wynne then broke that promise and called the 15% premium cut a “stretch goal.”

She had also promised to deal with fraud – but beyond announcing a “Fair Auto Insurance Plan” in December on the eve of another provincial election, her government has done little over the past several years to meaningfully address the fraud that drives up insurance costs.