Industry Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2006

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much to the witnesses for coming out.

Mr. Hyatt, we met.... Actually, what triggered this a little bit on the aftermarket was the surprise I had that night of meeting you and others who told me about the concern with the aftermarket issue that consumers, just about everyone in Canada, will at some point in time endure in their lives. Can you help me just a little bit with what other jurisdictions are doing to get the authority to get the codes?

[Paul Hyatt]

Yes. Much of the effort in Canada is led by the AIA. The Automotive Industries Association of Canada is made up of many different automotive associations, from car repairers to ourselves, for instance, to retail organizations. They really have put a lot of statistics together to help us all understand the situation.

I come from the retail section and association area, for instance. As I mentioned, I'm president of the Tire Industry Association, which is an international association. In the United States the only association that is in agreement with what's going on is the ASA. Every other association that's involved with automotive, whether it be part of the SEMA group or part of any automotive group, is against it, and they want the right to repair act approved and passed in the House of Representatives.

We're facing a bit of an uphill battle, but we feel that.... I'm here on behalf of consumers. Our company will survive. I'm not concerned with that. We're growing. We're strong. We will survive, one way or another. But the consumers will be extremely inconvenienced. And I'm sorry, but I also see job losses on the OEM level, where the manufacturers will be inundated with, as I said earlier, cars coming in from Asian companies who say, we have thousands of service points whereas you only have 200.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think the whole impact is murky. You only talked about tires. I don't know how many sensors these new vehicles will have, but it's even a matter of other areas. For instance, you can't get the car started because the sensor has been triggered, and you get a repair done on it, but you end up taking it to the manufacturer, to a dealer to get it reset. I think it's a snowball that has started, and many of us haven't realized it.

I appreciate, Mr. McTeague, the number of questions you got started on at the start of it.

[Paul Hyatt]

We might mention one thing. There are about 200 different codes in the computer that look after your ride, your brakes, your emissions, transmission, and so on. So all those hundreds of codes have to be recognized by the repairer. And it doesn't mean to share proprietary information; it means, here's how we fix it. Here are your diagrams. It can be done.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think it's easier in large urban areas because you're likely closer to dealers. As you get out into the remote areas, obviously you're further from the dealers, which becomes a bigger issue.

Can I go to Mr. Barry? In terms of some of the issues you talked about with transportation, roads, the need.... And we've heard about the whole transportation issue, the border issue. And we have the gas tax rebate. Give us some other ideas in terms of what a federal government could look at in terms of sustainable funding for those types of infrastructures.

[Jonathan Barry]

I'm going to actually turn it over to David. He's done some work on this.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay. David.

[David Black]

In the board's federal pre-budget submission, which was put before the finance committee and will be before you momentarily--we're just waiting for the French-language translation--we're asking the federal government to commit a billion dollars from the strategic infrastructure fund to public transit every year. That can be invested across the country. That'll help to get people out of their cars.

We talk about wanting to get people out of their cars, but we have to give them a viable option. If you travel around Toronto, if you live in certain areas it will take you two hours to get to downtown Toronto. It will take you three hours to get from Mr. McTeague's riding to the Kipling subway station.

It's that type of thing that we have to deal with, so we need to invest more in transit, build more streetcars, subways, and so on. That investment will help to do that. It will get the cars off the road, which will allow more trucks to move across and around the city.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

We'll go briefly to Monsieur Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I have a good question for you, Mr. Hyatt.

Supposing that in 2008, I owned a vehicle equipped with this new tire pressure monitoring device and I get a flat tire on a Sunday afternoon? What would I need to do to change the flat tire? Will my vehicle still operate after I've removed the flat and installed the spare tire? Or, will all systems be disabled?

That's my understanding of your explanation of how the new technology will work.

[Paul Hyatt]

You may remove your wheel and put your spare tire on. The light in the dashboard will come on and will stay on permanently until the sensor is reset. I've often told some of our customers to use duct tape to cover up the flashing light, but that's not correct. The light has to be brought to either a store of ours or a dealer that has the means to reset the sensor. But you can change your tire and your wheel safely.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I see. So then, only the dash warning light will continue to flash.

[Paul Hyatt]

That's correct.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Fine then. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being with us here this evening. We appreciate your time and your presentations. Some of you mentioned that you have presentations. I understand they will be translated and distributed to the committee.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. James M. Latimer]

Yes, and Mr. Black mentioned that he's going to get us an existing French one that he submitted to the client.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

If you have anything further to submit to the committee, we hope after this week to go into discussions in terms of the final report on manufacturing. We hope to have that completed by mid-December to give to the finance minister for next year's budget in February or March. We'd certainly appreciate any further submissions you may have.

We thank you for your time tonight. Please stay and greet the members. We will be heading to the airport shortly to go to Windsor. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

The meeting is adjourned.