B.C.’s premier says the ICBC rebate is meant to ease the financial burden of increased gas prices caused by the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.
Premier John Horgan’s offer of $110 rebates to ICBC policy holders as a “one-time relief payment” to help consumers with high gasoline prices isn’t going to go very far, according to drivers who were filling up in Vancouver on Friday.
“It’s a stop-gap. It doesn’t address (high gas prices) long-term,” said Michael Santos, a Vancouver sales and business-development representative who was at an Esso station at Burrard and Davie where regular gas was 195.9 cents per litre.
With Vancouver gas prices hovering around $2 per litre, the $110 rebate will pay for about three weeks worth of driving for Santos, who now thinks twice about making sales visits.
“If it’s expensive to go there, it doesn’t make prospecting very lucrative,” Santos said.
The $110 represents about one tank of gas for Langley teacher Tracy Croutch.
“I know it’s a gesture, but it doesn’t really help,” said Croutch, who would simply prefer lower prices.
Horgan, however, said the one-time payment is “a significant contribution at a very difficult time for drivers as they look at the price at the pump and know that there’s relief on the way,” in announcing the payment along with Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth.
Soaring gas prices are in part the result of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Horgan said, and the volatility is hurting consumers worldwide, not just in B.C. ICBC’s robust financial results allow the corporation to offer this measure of relief.
Government critics, however, called the rebate a political move that doesn’t deliver the relief consumers need or get at the root problem of unaffordability.
“This is simply them trying to get out of what they’re obviously getting bad polling numbers on, and trying to figure out a way to change the dial,” said Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar during an appearance on pundit Mike Smyth’s show on CKNW.
The rebate will cost ICBC $395 million and will be paid out as $110 rebates to individual policy holders and $165 for commercial-vehicle policy holders. It will go to customers who held basic insurance policies with the Crown corporation in the month of February.
A rebate, however, is something ICBC could have offered regardless of the crisis and could have been more generous, said policy analyst and retired civil servant Rick McCandless.
“They’re linking it to trying to help out at the gas pump, and that’s fine, but the main purpose is to give back excess money (to ICBC policy holders),” McCandless said.
McCandless estimated ICBC has as much as $450 million in capital that is excess to its legislated need for reserve funds, which could have been paid out in rebates of $125 to $150.
That is based on an analysis of the corporation’s publicly available financial information McCandless published after the province released its latest budget.
McCandless said gas prices are being driven up by more factors than just the invasion of Ukraine, but a resolution to the war would start to ease prices and “take the pressure off governments to do something right by the taxpayer.”
“In the meantime, because of the risks (of) a potential recession, the government has to take some measure to provide relief,” he said.
Milobar, however, who is also the B.C. Liberal finance critic, said rebates don’t target the people who need the help most and gives it to those who need it the least.
“The fact that a single parent working two jobs and driving a Honda Civic is getting the same one-time rebate as a Tesla owner is ridiculous,” Milobar said in a statement.
B.C. Green party leader Sonia Furstenau said it was shortsighted to target rebates only for drivers when “the affordability crisis, made worse by rising gas prices, affects all British Columbians.”
“Whenever there is an opportunity for transformative change, the B.C. NDP doubles down on the status quo,” she said in a series of Tweets published Friday.
Furstenau said the government would be better off if it took the $395 million and “leaned into permanent solutions to transportation problems in this province.”
She added that a better way to deal with the crisis would be to look at using the $2 billion generated by the carbon-tax to provide more generous and consistent rebates to “encourage a shift away from oil and gas.”
— with file from Canadian Press
Netflix on Thursday reported that its subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer, a sign the huge gains from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading viewers is tapering off.
The 5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same time last year. Even so, the company’s revenue and profit rose at a faster pace than analysts had projected, according to FactSet Research.
Netflix ended September with 282.7 million worldwide subscribers — far more than any other streaming service.
The Los Gatos, California, company earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management predicted the company’s revenue will rise at the same 15% year-over-year pace during the October-December period, slightly than better than analysts have been expecting.
The strong financial performance in the past quarter coupled with the upbeat forecast eclipsed any worries about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price surged nearly 4% in extended trading after the numbers came out, building upon a more than 40% increase in the company’s shares so far this year.
The past quarter’s subscriber gains were the lowest posted in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off indicates Netflix is shifting to a new phase after reaping the benefits from a ban on the once-rampant practice of sharing account passwords that enabled an estimated 100 million people watch its popular service without paying for it.
The crackdown, triggered by a rare loss of subscribers coming out of the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 through this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter, while many of its industry rivals have been struggling as households curbed their discretionary spending.
Netflix’s gains also were propelled by a low-priced version of its service that included commercials for the first time in its history. The company still is only getting a small fraction of its revenue from the 2-year-old advertising push, but Netflix is intensifying its focus on that segment of its business to help boost its profits.
In a letter to shareholder, Netflix reiterated previous cautionary notes about its expansion into advertising, though the low-priced option including commercials has become its fastest growing segment.
“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” Netflix management wrote in the letter.
As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV series and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for gorging on hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime nemesis Takeru Kobayashi.
Netflix will be trying to attract more viewer during the current quarter with a Nov. 15 fight pitting former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson against Jake Paul, a YouTube sensation turned boxer, and two National Football League games on Christmas Day.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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