its not the government that writes off the vehicle, it is the insurance company that writes it off. the government is just closing a loophole that used to allow written off vehicles from being re-registered with shoddy and dangerous repairs being done to them or written off vehicles from out of province being brought here and sold to unsuspecting buyers as new or used vehicles.

most insurance companies will as procedure write off a vehicle as salvage when the damage is higher than book value even if it is only cosmetic damage for the simple reason that they don't want the liability of having someone flip the car and it getting in an accident or mishap and gettign sued. once they write the car off it becomes their property so they are just covering their ***.

is it a fair law, not allways unless you happen to be one of the people that bought a written off car and found out it was repaired with duct tape and bubble gum.
i think they should have two classifications for written off vehicles. those that a written off due to structural damage that is unrepairable and those that a written off due to cosmetic/money and can be safely repaired and road worthy. bad thing is that most new cars even in a minor bumper crash are designed with crush zones.

rgds
Mike