We share that concern, absolutely. That's why we support this legislation. We think it would be, in terms of our industry, a small step forward in making sure that we don't end up in that huis clos of having to go to a dealer that is maybe 200 or 400 kilometres away, depending on the vehicle you've purchased.
As well, I would say that CASIS—and we hear about CASIS—to me is a perfect example of another piège that I would encourage the committee to think about in any amendments that it considers.
What a wonderful story that the automotive industry and the aftermarket voluntarily got together and made an agreement to share information 15 years ago. Well, since then—and it's unfortunate that Mr. Masse is not here today, because he's been on this committee forever and could tell you—year after year, the same story is heard, which is that one side says CASIS is wonderful and working perfectly and the other side says it's irreparably broken.
What is the truth of the matter? We're a third party in this; we don't have line of sight either. However, that voluntary agreement has no review mechanism, no audit mechanism, and there's no third party that looks at it that anybody can go to review it. That's why we've ended up in that situation today.
We have heard talk of—and we could accept—voluntary agreements to potentially share information among industries in order to not be subject to Bill C-244. We think that's where some would like to go with this. We would urge some caution there. If that's where we end up, we think we need to make sure, whether it's ISED or some other body, that there is a regular review.
If a party to a voluntary agreement has an issue with it, what are they supposed to do about it? Again, that's why we don't like what we would consider reverse onus from a previous witness. There's an imbalance here of economic power between an OEM and most in the aftermarket.
Our friends at LKQ may have a bit of money, but they don't have as much money as the multinational auto companies, and anybody else in that industry is going to be even smaller. To us, asking somebody like that to have hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of lawyers and spend years in court to argue about whether they should have access would be a mistake.