Evidence of meeting #49 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.
A video is available from Parliament.
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
There hasn't been, to my knowledge. The Competition Bureau has a lot of limitations on its ability to do proactive studies under the current Competition Act, and we are separately advocating for them to have more power to be able to look at these broad consumer problems. They have a lot of trouble doing that currently.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Matt, since you're on the screen now, I went through the survey you did. It's quite extensive. Thank you very much for doing that.
I noticed that over 50% of Canadians said that they have tried to repair their devices or equipment, but they found that the repair was too expensive or not possible. How would Bill C-244 begin to help consumers with that problem?
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
A question people have been talking about here this morning is the broadness of this bill and the fact that it's a broad exemption, and I think that's a really important part of it. The reality of the situation is that manufacturers are finding a lot of different ways to throw obstacles in the way of consumers when we want to do this, so having a broad exception is a really important approach to having a broad right to act here.
In a predigital world, I don't think we would have ever been sitting here talking about whether people should have a basic right to repair their devices the way they want. I don't think it should be any different now. It's only because software has enabled manufacturers to push back against consumers and to take away a lot of our ownership of our devices that we're here today, and this bill helps redress that.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
You're absolutely right. This bill covers a very broad range of products.
We've heard a lot of concerns from different industries, talking about the warranty as a major concern. If consumers tamper with their device, it may void the warranty. I want your comment on that.
The other issue is safety, both during the process of repairing it and as far as medical devices go. If it's not being done properly, it may not be as accurate, and a life-or-death situation may depend on it. I would like your comment on that, and perhaps Mr. Lawford's afterward.
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
Yes, there are certainly a lot of different use cases, some of which may raise safety concerns, as you mentioned. I think we are open to some modification of the text, just to further clarify some of the cases that could come up.
To be clear, this is for repair purposes. It's to be clear that, potentially, for some categories of devices, repair needs to be done to a certain standard, like what you're talking about in emergency situations. The current limitations on the right to repair cut in both directions, right? During the pandemic we had instances of breathing devices that couldn't be repaired by the manufacturer in the time available and couldn't be repaired by local staff in the hospitals affected, and that also raised a very serious safety concern for people.
I don't think we should interpret safety as only being a problem that benefits manufacturers here.
Liberal
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
Maybe, I guess.... I don't think that's the primary barrier that most consumers are facing. In most cases, they're out of warranty when they're seeking repair, so I don't know that it's a major portion of this bill either way. I'm not sure. Other folks might have other views.
Liberal
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
On the last point, I'd say that consumers are fairly conversant with making unauthorized repairs voiding their warranty. I think they expect that. I think they'd make this trade-off in the ability to go aftermarket.
On your first point, for something like an insulin pump, I would hope that Health Canada would add any additional concerns through their legislation. I get the point, but again, if we're back to repair being the standard rather than modification, perhaps if there were a little more language in the bill that could lead to some more comfort.
Liberal
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Very quickly, Mr. Lawford, do you have any suggestions on a possible amendment to make this bill more focused, perhaps as a stepping stone for further legislative amendments to ensure the right to repair?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Yes, I'm actually.... I don't have the bill right in front of me, the text—that's my mistake—but the definition of “repair” would be the place to go to try to add additional detail.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you very much, Mr. Dong.
Mr. Lemire, go ahead for six minutes.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for joining us today.
Mr. Lawford, you talked about interoperability. I would like to hear your definition of interoperability and how we can improve it or make it more accessible in the bill.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Thank you for your question.
I'm going to make reference to a paper that I'll provide the committee. It's called, “If a Machine Could Talk, We Would Not Understand It”. It's from Anthony Rosborough. He discusses the fact that a definition has to be contextual.
I won't go into it, but effectively what he was saying was, as I said in my remarks, “Interoperable for what purpose?” If it's for the purpose of repairing the item, then you need as much interoperability and data as are necessary to repair the item. If it's for something else, then you need a different definition, and I think we get hung up on what interoperability is referring to.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
So the bill we are considering now still gives us a significant foundation in terms of interoperability.
Are we going far enough? Do you have any suggestions for the committee members to go further during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I am hesitant to give you the text I would propose. However, I would like to submit it to you later.
As I said, the study I mentioned offers some ideas.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
We will gladly accept them.
Mr. Hatfield, OpenMedia is often at the forefront of open data and the protection of the public, especially in terms of costs for consumers.
Do you have an opinion on interoperability and how the bill could be improved? How could we go further for consumers?
December 5th, 2022 / 11:50 a.m.
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
That's a huge question. I think in general I'll defer the interoperability discussion to both the Bill C-294 discussion and also looking at our Competition Act—and the privacy act, for that matter, in Bill C-27.
The big picture around interoperability is that many, many digitally savvy companies are locking their consumers within walled gardens. As many people on Twitter know these days, it can be very hard to leave a company once they get you locked in, no matter how you feel about that company. In general, we want to see our government passing legislation that gives consumers real ownership of our data and makes it easy for us to see our data, take our data out of a system and put it into another system. We want them to really facilitate that transfer, because people don't have the options they deserve in terms of who to do business with anymore. A lot of us are locked into commercial relationships that we are not satisfied by.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Currently, what are the consequences of not acting? If Bill C‑244 is not passed and the status quo is maintained, what are the consequences for consumers?
Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
We're seeing a world in which physical devices don't work like we think physical devices should anymore, right? Folks from farmers to auto workers are speaking about this. There's a whole followership on the Internet about the Internet of things misfiring and people who buy a refrigerator, a fryer, a car—and even, honestly, soon clothing is coming—where you might just find that, “Oh, this manufacturer has gone belly-up”. There was a change in investment. Maybe they changed their product line. With this important physical part of your life that you thought you would get five or 10 or 20 years of service out of, it turns out you got only a year and a half.
Fortunately, I think most of us don't have entirely smart devices households yet, but as we move to a world where more of us will, we need to get these kinds of pro-consumer bills passed so that we're not completely beholden to many manufacturers. If we find ourselves in a situation where manufacturers are failing their duty to us, we can take action to redress that balance.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
That's great. Thank you very much.
Mr. Boxall, you talked about the urgency of repairing farm machinery, given the consequences not repairing the machinery would have. Some people oppose this bill or want to frame it more to protect the repair “market”.
In an environment of labour shortages and scarcity of both resources and materials, is it still possible to provide full service repair in the regions, particularly when it comes to farm machinery?
Should we instead trust agricultural producers' creativity and ability to repair their own machinery to be fully efficient and avoid losing valuable work days?