Eby’s over-the-top rhetoric is naked politicking
Politics and law are like apples and oranges. But in the office of Attorney General David Eby, those very different fruits have somehow got mixed up in the same cart. And then the cart has been knocked over. And lit on fire.
Is this an oblique reference to Eby calling ICBC a “dumpster fire?” Maybe. But it is more than that.
It is impossible to open a newspaper these days without seeing the attorney general railing against everything in sight, apparently for political gain. Or headlines. Or both.
First it was the Insurance Corp. of B.C., which presented a convenient opportunity to blame the Liberals for what he described as a “doomsday scenario”. Now, on his watch, ICBC is rescinding settlement offers left and right, and it is legitimately injured people who are paying the price.
But that shiny political apple is just so tasty. Guess it’s worth squashing the legal orange. Not sure that someone who is off work after being rear-ended and is having trouble paying the rent would feel the same way.
It reminds me of U.S. President Donald Trump saying that hundreds of thousands of U.S. federal workers not getting paid because of his government shutdown would simply “adjust” their lifestyles. As if paying for food and heat were a “choice,” like getting hurt in an accident is a “choice.”
Just as Trump would have you believe that every immigrant is a criminal and, thus, the need for a border wall, Eby would have you believe that every person hurt in an accident is a faker and should only receive a pittance for their injuries. They should just suck it up and get back to work. Never mind that they have been paying full freight for insurance. Isn’t insurance there to help you if you have been hurt?
Only someone who hasn’t been hurt in a car accident could think that way. I know, because it happened to me. When you can’t turn your head because someone has rear-ended you going 50 km/h, the world stops turning. Literally.
But Eby’s naked politicking doesn’t end with his approach to ICBC.
His new doomsday scenario is money laundering, which he claims has infected every nook and cranny of our economy. In fact, the number grows daily, from millions to billions, even if that contradicts the study he commissioned. But he’s got an answer for his “new numbers” — his expert was in a rush the first time around. Sorry, Peter German, you go under the bus like everyone else.
Like his criticisms of ICBC, the attorney general’s crusade against casinos and money laundering is a convenient way to blame the Liberals for being asleep at the switch and letting this disaster go unchecked. Again, any political benefit is purely a coincidence.
It seems that Eby is drawing from a familiar playbook: describe a situation in the most dire terms, blame your predecessor and then hold yourself out as the person to ride in on a white horse and save the day. Oh, and don’t let the facts get in the way of a great sound bite. Do “dumpster fire” and “rats nest of rot” sound familiar?
I wish I had access to all the historical footage, the way CNN does. That way when Trump says, “I never said Mexico was going to pay for the wall,” they roll out the footage of him saying exactly that.
It would be nice to roll out the footage of Eby railing against the unfairness and excesses of the civil forfeiture system back when he was a lawyer, not a politician, right before I played his quote last week about how civil forfeiture was the golden ticket to fight money laundering in B.C.
Are his criticisms of the police, the Crown, the legal profession, the Liberals and even his own expert unfair? Yes.
Do they undermine public confidence in our institutions? Yup.
Do they undercut the very people that the attorney general’s office should be working with in a collaborative way? You got it.
But let’s not get in the way of a good headline.