Industry Committee on Feb. 8th, 2023

[Dr. Alissa Centivany]

The bill would have no impact with respect to legitimate uses of the anti-circumvention laws. As I stated in my comments, the claims or concerns that there are going to be security risks or that there will be a theft risk are really unfounded unless the code that we're talking about that's embedded in these machines that deal with and govern repair is the same code that also deals with reproduction, let's say, or making copies or controlling emissions, in the case of tractors. I can only assume that that's a technical design issue that would be easy for technologists to solve simply by separating those bits of code out from each other.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks.

Mr. Rosborough, if you want to add—

[Paul Fogolin]

I'm sorry. Can I...?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry. I have only limited time, unfortunately. Maybe you can find time with someone else.

Mr. Rosborough, I would be interested in your response as well.

[Anthony D. Rosborough]

This demonstrates, maybe, some of the limitations in hinging lawfulness on a defined set of activities. Whether an activity is repair, maintenance or diagnosis would require some inquiry that might be difficult to discern in some cases. For example, if restoring features that have been disabled through a rollback or an over-the-air update, whereby your treadmill no longer plays videos like it used to on its screen.... If you restore that, is that an act of repair, or is that maintenance? Is it indistinguishable from repair in some respects? Maybe yes.

I guess my position is that there's more flexibility in a regulatory process that would exempt certain implementations of TPMs from protection altogether, so where a TPM—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That may be the case, and I take your point about regulations, but with the language as it is.... Say we were faced with an upvote-downvote on the language as it is, there are certainly some potentially unintended consequences, but overwhelmingly it still seems to be pro-consumer and a net benefit.

Would you agree with that?

[Anthony D. Rosborough]

I would agree with that.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

I now give the floor to Ms. Desbiens for six minutes.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for all of this information. I have to admit, I'm a bit new to all this, so the witnesses are really educating me.

I'd like to share a little story with you. About 50 years ago, my father, a restaurant and hotel owner, installed a dishwasher. The fact that I can remember shows my age, on this day of birthdays. The dishwasher was fully mechanical—so no electronic parts. It worked on a pump, which distributed the hot and cold water to reach the right temperature, in accordance with health and safety standards. When my father installed the dishwasher, he told me that I should keep it as long as it kept running because the next one would last four or five years at most. He said I wouldn't be able to get another dishwasher like that one.

One thing that tends to help a business improve its bottom line is to save money on equipment. That's where a business can really make gains.

I'll tell you the connection to agriculture.

My question is for Ms. Sereda.

[Shannon Sereda]

I'm not sure how to....

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Is the interpretation coming through on your end?

[Shannon Sereda]

It's not working. Sorry.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Should I retell my dishwasher story?

Is everything working now?

[Shannon Sereda]

Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

I should take this opportunity to thank the interpreters. The service they provide is always invaluable.

Can I retell my dishwasher story now, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

As you wish, but I'm not sure what the connection was to your question.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

The connection is actually obsolescence.

As I said, my father installed a dishwasher 50 years ago in his restaurant. His advice to me was to keep it running as long as I could, because it was the last of its kind. He said that, going forward, all dishwashers would be electronic and would need to be replaced every four or five years. His view was that the new electronic dishwashers wouldn't last any longer than that and would not be repairable for all sorts of reasons.

Our dishwasher is still there. It functions quite simply using a pump that distributes the hot and cold water and the detergent. The dishwasher is fine and works quite well even though it's antiquated. Quite the restaurant relic our dishwasher is.

My father was actually teaching me a lesson in cost-effectiveness and profitability. As a business owner, the way to improve your bottom line is by saving on equipment. The more you can save on your equipment—upgrading and repairing it to prolong its useful life as long as possible—the better it is for your bottom line.

It's a bit like that in agriculture. Equipment is very expensive and is usually what makes the difference when balancing revenue and expenditures.

I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to consider a particular option under this bill. I'm talking about giving people in remote regions who don't have access to authorized repair centres access to certain repair services. What do you think?

[Shannon Sereda]

Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. If, within this bill, there is an ability for these third party dealers to be able to access the equipment, then yes, there is a benefit to farmers. This is because it comes down to timeliness and their ability to have somebody get to their farm within an hour to fix the machinery, or to be able to do it themselves, as I mentioned before.

We're seeing farmers move toward less complex systems, much like you're referring to with your father's great advice on the dishwasher, because they have the right to repair them themselves. While they lose some efficiencies by not running the most state-of-the-art equipment, they are more interested in not losing downtime during what can sometimes be only eight weeks to harvest their crops.

Yes, I think we would want to see that accessibility embedded into the right to repair for the independent service providers as well.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

It's safe to say, then, that cost-effectiveness and profitability come into play.

[Shannon Sereda]

Definitely, cost is an implication for farmers when they have this type of downtime. Even just bringing in any dealership to conduct their repairs is a cost to the farmer. If they can do that of their own accord by having access to the tools, then, of course, that reduces their costs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mrs. Desbiens and Ms. Sereda.

We will now turn to Mr. Masse for six minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and bonne fête to you and my colleague.

I want to start with Mr. Bernard.

It was my legislation for the original right to repair for the auto sector. It resulted in the voluntary agreement for cases, as you well noted. It didn't anticipate some of the.... We knew that one of the weaknesses of the bill was that when digitalization came into place, it didn't have that component.

Some of the OEMs have agreed that maybe this shouldn't be a voluntary agreement anymore. Right now, we have Tesla, which hasn't opted in, and there are others.

I wonder where your associations are with that. I am getting a lot of mixed signals about it. You may not be hearing as many of the issues or problems, but the consistency is there. Maybe you can highlight a bit more what you think is working and potentially what isn't working, in your opinion.

I've been around this enough to know that when we're hearing enough noise, there is usually something going on. Perhaps you can provide some input there, please.

[Charles Bernard]

Thank you for that important question.

First off, I want to point out that the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association is not a signatory to the agreement, so I can't really comment on what the future of the agreement looks like or where it's headed. I know that CADA supports this avenue and continues to work to that end because the agreement has delivered measurable results.

The Tesla problem is significant and worth mentioning, but the fact is the problem is specific to Tesla. We encourage government officials and parliamentarians to examine the issue carefully. This is an excellent opportunity to get an opposite perspective on why Tesla, as a company, has such a rigid approach when it comes to security. Everyone agrees that these vehicles are really computers on four wheels. As my colleagues mentioned, there may or may not have been errors in the coding. It's hard to say, but there are still associated risks.

We haven't heard very many complaints from consumers about access to repair. Automakers may have some frustrations, but because our association isn't a signatory to the agreement, it's hard to have a clear position on the matter. From our interactions with consumers, I can say that their feedback has been quite positive, and they are not at all frustrated when it comes to repair access.

I don't have the numbers for Canada, but in the U.S., 4.2% of vehicles are no longer in use and are ready for the scrap heap. We are talking about an all-time high. In Canada, the average useful life of a vehicle is 13 years, which is still a record. Cars or vehicles are repaired, and it's all thanks to the agreement you mentioned, in our view.

That's what I would say.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have to go to the other witnesses for now; I'll try to come back later.

I guess my concern is that the United States has several states going on a different path. We have provinces considering this too, and if we don't do anything ourselves, we're basically going to be putting ourselves in a dog's breakfast on the issue for automobiles, which is a public safety issue.

I want to go to Mr. Fogolin. It's correct that the entertainment software industry hasn't gotten much attention in this. Being a gamer myself, with my PS5, I can tell you that it is something that still can be hacked and so forth.

At the same time, you're trying to make a distinction for your association to be different. I think you need to articulate the reasons for that a little more strongly. It's not that it was weak. I understand where you're coming from with regard to security updates, automatic downloads and different things you can put on.

I guess a concern I also have is that from a consumer standpoint, it has less to do with the video game industry; it's often more associated with Microsoft releasing products that aren't even completed and need updates before you even put them in your system.

Perhaps you can distinguish a bit more why you think you need a special provision for the sector on this.