On April 1, 2019, the CRT will start resolving many motor vehicle accident (MVI) personal injury disputes in British Columbia. This will include determinations of whether an injury is a “minor injury”, disputes about accident benefits, and disputes about damages and fault up to $50,000.
We’re working hard to implement these new areas of jurisdiction, and we’ll be reporting on our progress in a series of blog posts. These posts highlight aspects of our team’s hard work behind the scenes.
Solution Explorer
The Solution Explorer is the first step in the CRT dispute process. It asks you a series of questions to help classify your dispute. It gives you free legal information, self-help tools, and options for what you can do next. You can apply for CRT dispute resolution right from the Solution Explorer.
In January we ran a limited beta test of the new content for MVI personal injury disputes, for stakeholders and community legal advocates. In February we ran a 2-week public beta test that gave everyone an opportunity to provide feedback. Our Solution Explorer team is busy analyzing all the feedback and making improvements. This new area of the Solution Explorer will go live on April 1, 2019.
Technology Update
With only a few weeks left to go before the April 1 launch, we’re working hard on a final round of internal testing and quality assurance on all our systems, including the online application forms for MVI disputes. Extensive user testing was done to ensure the forms are easy to understand and use.
We’ve made several improvements to our website. We have a landing page for MVI disputes and an extensive FAQ on this new area of jurisdiction. We’ll be adding even more information in the coming weeks. We’ve also added direct links to login or respond to a dispute, and a general FAQ page with answers to the most frequently-asked questions we get about our services, the dispute resolution process, and more.
(click to view)To serve you better, the CRT phone system will also be upgraded soon. After analyzing our call statistics, we redesigned the phone menus to address the most common needs.
Rules Consultation
The CRT rules define the processes and procedures for dispute resolution at the CRT. On April 1, 2019, we will be repealing the current CRT rules and replacing them with new ones. Most of the changes are to add rules for our MVI jurisdiction.
The CRT has been accepting disputes since July 2016. Over the past two and a half years, we have listened and learned from the feedback of CRT participants. We hope these updates will make the rules more user-friendly and accessible for everyone.
This January and February, we did a public consultation on the new draft rules. We received a lot of excellent comments. We’ve started analyzing them and making final updates. The new rules will be posted to our Rules page in late March. They will take effect on April 1.
CRT Operations
Over the past month, the CRT has held competitions for the following full-time tribunal member positions:
- Vice Chair – Motor Vehicle Injuries
- Vice Chair – Quality Assurance
- Full-time Tribunal members specializing in motor vehicle injuries, small claims or strata property disputes
We expect to announce the successful candidates for these positions in the next couple months.
And we are currently recruiting:
- Resolution Support Clerks (10 positions) – competition closes March 15, 2019
Presentations and Information Materials
We are finalizing informational rack cards and posters about this new area of jurisdiction. If your organization would like these materials, if you would like a representative of the CRT to speak to your organization, or for media inquiries, please contact us.