Evidence of meeting #3 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transport.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Okay. You have two suppliers for your gas pedal. One is Denso, the other is CTS Corporation, correct?
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
CTS manufactures in Ms. Crombie's riding, actually, in Mississauga.
When did you begin discussions with CTS Corporation over a redesign of the faulty gas pedal for a new one? Was that before the recall was issued, or after?
9:45 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
To go to that, CTS also is engaged in supplying gas pedals in other parts of the world, and there had been an issue with respect to certain pedals in use in Europe in right-hand-drive vehicles. In that case, once we discovered that there were some common conditions, engineering began discussion: one, was there a problem, and did you identify it; and two, how do you go about engineering a solution to it? We were able to work with some existing engineering solutions as well as develop new ones.
In terms of the precise date of the first discussion with CTS, I can't confirm that for you today, but I would be happy to reply on that.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Well, I would expect you would know what Canadian operations are doing with the supplier around a critical recall issue. Can you at least tell me generally whether that was before you issued the recall, or was that after you issued the recall on January 21?
9:45 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
Again, from a Toyota Canada standpoint, we're responsible for the vehicle. The discussions with CTS would have taken place with engineering on the manufacturing side of the business, and Toyota Canada is not part of that structure.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Okay. The Financial Post, on January 29, suggested that Toyota had been working with CTS to redesign the faulty pedal since Toyota shut down North American production on January 26. Can anybody confirm whether that's when this in fact happened?
9:45 a.m.
President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
We do purchase those pedals. We have two manufacturers, CTS and Denso, and I use both. For the Corolla and the Matrix and the RAV4 we use CTS, and the quality we receive from CTS is very, very high. From a manufacturing point of view, there are no issues. In terms of the design, it was recognized that there could have been some issues, especially with the environmental conditions that affect the gas pedal.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I'm interested in when you actually approached them about redesigning the pedal. I'm trying to confirm a timeline here.
9:45 a.m.
President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
The issue is that CTS has a responsibility for the design, so they would have dealt directly with Japan regarding design issues. As soon as we found out.... I think we found out around the end of the year and then we made the conversion as quickly as possible.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
So you knew before you issued the recall. You began discussion about redesigning a faulty gas pedal, but nobody told Transport Canada.
9:50 a.m.
President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
Because at the time the number of cases was still very, very low.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
You have a serious safety problem. You're already talking with your supplier about redesigning a faulty gas pedal, and nobody told Transport Canada, or NHTSA for that matter, until after a recall was issued on January 21. That's what you're telling us.
9:50 a.m.
President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
Obviously when you have a problem with any component, first of all you try to find out what the problem is. Then the second point is--
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
You already know you have a problem. You talked to the supplier about redesigning it.
9:50 a.m.
President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
Let me finish. If you have a counter-measure, you have to make sure the counter-measure is effective. To have a problem and create another problem is not going to be a solution. We have to ensure that the testing is proper and we are confident that the counter-measures will be effective. That's the process.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Let me suggest this much. You had Transport Canada and others looking at a floor mat issue when you knew you had a gas pedal issue. You were already talking to your supplier about changes to a gas pedal, so you knew you had an issue. Now, maybe they didn't confirm it in an engineering report, but this was all prior to January 21. You had not told the regulator. You hadn't told consumers that you were already engaged in this. It takes an enormous amount of time to ramp up production on a part. I have worked in the auto industry, and I know it takes a while. This was all occurring, but you were telling nobody about it. You were just talking with your supplier.
9:50 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
Mr. Chairman, when you attempt to isolate or identify a problem you go back to the parts maker, particularly if there is patented technology involved, and you work with their engineers in attempting to isolate it. So the issue of identifying the problem and any potential engineering solution go hand in hand.
The other thing I want to stress is that the types of conditions a customer might experience from pedal entrapment are very, very different from the types of conditions we're talking about with sticky pedal. What we're talking about with sticky pedal--
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
You never had an issue with pedal entrapment in a Canadian context. You've already told us that. But you issued a recall anyway. Was that a smokescreen, Mr. Beatty?
9:50 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
No. In fact as I mentioned, even in my own presentation, there was a specific Canadian issue with one floor mat that was produced for the Toyota Venza, and we initiated our own unique Canadian recall.
9:50 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
No. That was an issue we were investigating and took action on as Toyota Canada.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
I will be sharing my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Inaba, I asked you whether you had a corporate definition for “safety-related defects”. Mr. Beatty has given us an indication that you don't because you need to be able to get the information you don't have.
However, from 2000 to 2009 the complaints to NHTSA regarding unintended acceleration went from 48 to 660 on an annual basis. The documents I referred to from Transport Canada indicated that there had been such complaints from as early as 2000. Contrary to what Mr. Beatty says, there were about 125 complaints specific to that issue.
I am having difficulty understanding on what basis you made these decisions about recalls that are not recalls, at least on the basis of the documentation I have with me.
I'm going to ask Mr. Garneau to fill that in, please.
