Fonds - Royal Commission on Automobile Insurance

The Nova Scotia Royal Commission on Automobile Insurance was created by Order-in-Council dated April 6, 1955 and amended on July 25, 1956. The April commission appointed Justice Eugene T. Parker, a judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, as sole commissioner, with Professor Wilfred Berman, of Dalhousie University, as statistician and Robert F. McLellan, Queens Counsel lawyer in Truro, as counsel for the Commission. Its mandate was to review all matters relating to insurance against liability for loss or damage to an automobile or to persons or property caused by an automobile, including a comparison with other jurisdictions, the possible need for compulsory auto insurance, and the practicality of establishing a provincially owned insurance department. Four days of public hearings were held at Halifax starting July 25, 1955, as well as informal meetings with insurance industry and other stakeholders. In August 1955 the Royal Commission visited Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia for their experiences. Commissioner Parker resigned on December 2, 1955 due to ill health. The July 1956 Order-in-Council appointed Horace E. Read, Dean of Law at Dalhousie University Halifax, as chairperson with Professor Berman and Robert F. McLellan as co-commissioners. The mandate remained the same. In August 1956, the new Commission visited Maine and Massachusetts, USA, and in October 1956 held meetings with officials in New York state. They held more public hearings in Sydney and Yarmouth, NS, in September 1956, visited Ottawa and Toronto, and held informal meetings in Halifax with highway traffic specialists, government officials, and representatives from insurance companies, the adjusters’ association, and the automobile dealers’ association, ending in August 1957. Commissioner Read submitted their final report to His Honor Alistair Fraser, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, on September 30, 1957 and the commission disbanded.