Perth-Wellington Conservative MPP Randy Pettapiece has renewed his call to protect municipalities facing mounting insurance premiums.
During this first week of the legislative session, Pettapiece has introduced a new motion calling on the government to reform the joint and several liability model.
Pettapiece says municipalities’ insurance premiums are still too high, and he feels the Liberal government can no longer ignore the calls from its municipal partners.
Currently, if two or more parties are found at fault or negligent in a lawsuit, damages can be recovered from any defendant, even if the party is deemed only one percent responsible.
This puts municipalities on the hook when other defendants lack the ability to pay.
"Anybody caught up in these lawsuits could be devastating [sic] to communities. Some of them [lawsuits] can get up into the tens of millions of dollars." Pettapiece told CKNX News, "With our small communities, out here especially, that's a lot of money to be paid by the taxbase. So we just decided to keep at this thing.
Last February, Pettapiece introduced a private member’s motion calling on the government to reform the joint and several liability model.
The motion passed with strong support from all parties in the legislature.
However, at the August 2014 AMO conference, Premier Wynne announced that her government would not be introducing any joint and several liability reform measures.