The year 1970 marked a watershed in the history of British Columbia license plates. For almost four years the province had been preparing for the exhaustion of the six digit, 000-000 format in use, almost continuously since 1912. While the selection of a new format was an important decision, equally significant was the introduction of a registration system that implemented the use of decals. Almost every year, BC motorists had to line up at the Motor Vehicle Branch (MVB) to receive new date-stamped plates to replace their expired ones. Editorial writers across the province bemoaned the costs, and unnecessary labour expended to remove old, rusted-on plates every year, pleading with the government to introduce what was commonly referred to as a perma-plate. The 1970 base plate was designed, in part, to address these criticisms and introduce B.C. motorists to a more long-term plate.

Actual registration practices would remain unchanged, as motorists could begin to renew in the first week of January, but were given a grace period of two months before the previous year’s plates expired. Accordingly, all decals expired at the end of February. The new plates came designed with a box located on the bottom-center in which the reflective decals were to be affixed. The 1970 decal is itself, unique in that it did not contain a registration number to identify it with the plate. As 1970 required a complete re-issuance and every motorist had to have the new base plate to be on the road, decal fraud was not a pressing concern.

With the successful conclusion of this first run, the province undertook a new phase in 1973, one that was to last five years. Minor modifications were made to the plate to improve upon the style of the previous issue. Following complaints that trailer hitches were obscuring the decals , plates were designed with decal boxes in the upper-right corner (similar in position to the date stamp found on plates from the late 1960s). As it was another general re-issue, no decals were produced for 1973.