Industry Committee on June 22nd, 2021

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you. That's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next six-minute round goes to Mr. Lemire.

You have the floor, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. May, for your bill, which I had the opportunity to speak about and support in the House.

I also appreciated Mr. Jowhari's questions about the environmental issue. It will be good to continue the discussion on this topic.

First, in terms of planned obsolescence, please explain the impact of the current legislation on the lifespan of objects and how this legislation is currently being used by companies to their advantage.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I apologize that I will have to respond in English. I'm working on my French, but it is not nearly good enough to present here today.

The environmental side of this was a huge motivator for me to want to move on this private member's bill. Clearly we will see less waste, less e-waste, as we allow for more items to be repaired. We see a huge growing desire for the DIY culture.

You can go on YouTube and learn how to fix almost anything. I think that is something we want to instill in our culture. I have two children. I teach them as much as I possibly can how to fix things and repair things on their own. It's not just the right thing to do from an environmental perspective, but it's a skill that we are potentially losing in our generation. The question about planned obsolescence is one that we see all the time. My mother-in-law has a washer-dryer from the sixties and it's still running perfectly fine. She had to replace a fan belt on one of them a couple of years ago and it's running perfectly fine.

We don't see that anymore. We see devices that are designed to ultimately fail and that's a choice from a manufacturing perspective, but it's also been driven by consumers. I think we have to recognize this is something, again, that won't be solved by this private member's bill, but potentially provincial legislation and regulation around requiring manufacturers to provide parts or manuals, or things like that, in order to repair some of these devices. I think we need to look at that a little bit deeper in terms of how we move forward.

I agree with you, sir, the idea of planned obsolescence is a challenge, but it won't be solved by this bill.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Clearly this issue inspires you. We know that the environmental cost of not doing things is always there. Have you been able to measure how much it costs us in terms of waste?

With this bill, how much public money could be saved if we were able to repair our washers and dryers, our electronics and so on? This would keep these items out of landfills or recycling facilities in the United States, for example, as we discussed earlier in our work.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Again, as with the other question we had about the costs associated with this, I would have to defer to industry experts, who I hope you will call to witness on this bill, but common sense would suggest that it would be significant. We know that waste and waste management, if not the biggest challenge for our municipalities and regions, is up there, and we know that the cost is significant.

We're looking at this from an environmental perspective and we're looking at this from a consumer rights perspective, but we also need to look at this in terms of an affordability perspective and in terms of what consumers, what Canadians, are spending their money on. If they're not spending it on a new appliance, what then could they do? Could they pay down their debt? Could they save for retirement? Could they help their kids through school? There are a whole bunch of other aspects to this, a ripple effect that could result.

I'm excited by what is to come. Hopefully this bill does have enough runway to see royal assent, but maybe not. Again, given that it was unanimously supported in the House, maybe the minister may choose to pick it up as well.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Regarding the elections, the ball is in the government's court.

You described Bill C‑272 as a precursor. What other legislation could be reviewed in the same way to promote a longer lifespan for our devices?

At the same time, you said that many bills in the past weren't finalized.

What inspired you, both in the bills that were passed and the bills that weren't finalized?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

If I understand your question, there are a number of things that have been attempted in the past, but this issue of copyright would still have been a barrier. It would still have been illegal for those pieces of legislation to pass.

In terms of what was the motivation, quite frankly, it was seeing my children growing up in a more digitized world and seeing the need for this growing every single year.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have six minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. May, for your work here on this bill. We support it, as New Democrats, and, in fact, we would go much farther. In fact, in 2009, my private member's bill passed in the House 247 to 18 on the automotive aftermarket, and it's now a voluntary agreement. Then former minister Clement was able to work with the industry, being the automotive sector and the aftermarket, and that agreement needs to be updated as well.

What would you suggest in terms of this bill here that would advance.... It's not just rights for consumers. You noticed that the environment and consumer protectionism are there. What would you suggest your message would be to all those innovators out there that, once they purchase a product and understand the warranty, if they undermine the warranty, they still don't become a criminal for purchasing a product and then adapting it, changing it, improving it or innovating it? I think this is a key point that shouldn't be lost.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, MP Masse. I agree with you. I think there is a real potential to open up a lot of different industries with proper “right to repair” legislation.

Thank you for the work you've done in the past. I, along with MP Longfield, chair the auto caucus on the Liberal side. We've talked a lot about the auto industry in relation to right to repair.

You're absolutely correct. It was a voluntary agreement. It has worked well. It's not perfect. There are a number of holes in it and it definitely needs to be updated. We're seeing companies such as Tesla, of course, not following that voluntary agreement. A lot of companies, such as Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, don't follow that agreement.

We can use the auto industry, though, for those who are concerned, in terms of stakeholders who might be harmed by something like this. It clearly has not harmed the auto industry. What it has done is spin off a whole bunch of other options, whether it's independent mechanics, parts providers or service providers. This could be what you would see in a right to repair for digital devices. I think you would absolutely see that space starting to fill and making sure that the people have those choices and options.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's important to recognize your focus, to some degree, on electronic waste, something we haven't been doing the best job of as our landfills and other types of disposal systems aren't as robust as they probably should be in the market.

Interesting to the auto sector is that we think about the environment and we think about the rights and all those things. However, there was a public safety issue too. Vehicles would be on the road and not in the best condition for travelling, waiting for repairs and so forth. It gets complex.

With regard to electronic waste and going back to that point, can you indicate whether you have had some discussions with third party groups on that? I know that some of this is municipal, because that's where some of it ends up, but has there been any work done on that part of the program and platform yet?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Do you mean with regard to electronic waste?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, and measuring what could be improved upon or reduced. Have there been any third parties that have jumped to your quarters just yet? It's still a bit early, but I wonder whether some groups have latched on.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

We've had a number of stakeholders reach out to us, virtually the entirety of which have been supportive of this bill, a lot of them around the environmental components of this and the reduction of waste in landfills.

We know that a lot of incubators or groups that are trying to figure out new ways to do things are working on this kind of stuff. In fact, just down the street from where I am right now is a brand new incubator called Grand Innovations. Their almost entire focus is on dealing with what they call the “new waste”. People are throwing out, for the first time, a large flat-screen TV. How does the industry break that down? How does it separate the precious metals versus the recyclables to things that have to go in landfill? This is what they're trying to work on right now, things such as batteries, technology designed to sort and recycle small batteries. These are all things that I have talked to different groups about in terms of what they're working on.

What this bill would attempt to do is to reduce the incredible load of waste that is heading their way and try to manage that. This, of course, is going to be driven by the consumer, but again, it comes down to cost. If something is cheaper to repair than it is to replace, people will likely make that choice.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you very much for your work on this. It's appreciated.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We'll now start our second round of questions. We'll go first to MP Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. May, for being here today.

We're talking mainly about obsolescence. We spoke a little bit about the environment and various things. This inevitably affects the environment. The items become obsolete because of rules that make us no longer want to repair them. Instead of keeping them for a long time and repairing them, we throw them away, which inevitably harms the environment.

Will your bill somehow ensure that we can have material goods with a longer lifespan, which would contribute to the protection of the environment?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

As I said in response to a previous question, no, my bill does not in fact do that. It is the first step that could lead to that type of legislation, that could allow the provinces to move forward with different regulations around manufacturing, parts availability and access to manuals. That isn't affected by this bill; that would be an overreach.

What this bill does is simply allow for a circumvention of the TPMs around diagnosis, maintenance and repair. With that, it opens up.... I agree with you. The outcome that we would like to see as a result of this private member's bill could in fact be those things that you discussed. However, this bill specifically does not snap its fingers and make that all happen. It would all be up to the different provincial jurisdictions to determine for themselves what that right to repair landscape is going to look like.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

We have about 50 free trade agreements around the world.

Does your bill have a direct or indirect impact on these agreements?

Another issue has been bothering me a bit. You have chosen to introduce a private member's bill to change the rules, or at least to improve them.

Why isn't this a government bill?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

To answer your first question, I have heard the concern that it could have an impact on trade agreements, but I have yet to see how it would impact trade agreements. There would definitely need to be a look at that to see how, but nobody has shown me a line within CUSMA, for example, that would be problematic for us. That's why I'm open to amendments, to make sure that is not a barrier to this bill moving forward.

As for the second part of your question, I don't speak for the minister. I've said in earlier remarks that if this bill can't move forward because it doesn't have the runway to go through the process before the next election, the next-best option is that the minister pick it up and move it.

No, I can't speak for the minister as to why this hasn't been done previously.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

That's it for me, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Normally, I chide you because I need to cut you off. However, this time you still had a little time left.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Madam Chair, I have too much respect for you to act like Mr. Poilievre and constantly cut you off.

I'm kidding.