Evidence of meeting #2 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was toyota.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
All of them.
I went on the Toyota site and identified a lot of different vehicles, and it was quite helpful, as far as the article. I just thought I'd mention that, if people who drive Toyotas are listening today.
I'm curious. Should people stop driving these vehicles? Are they safe in Canada, or is Transport Canada at this stage recommending that people don't drive them? What are you recommending to people?
March 11th, 2010 / 10:40 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security Group, Department of Transport
All we're recommending right now is that people take their vehicles, follow the advice given to them by their manufacturer--which in this case is Toyota--and bring their vehicles to the dealers as quickly as possible so those issues can be dealt with by the manufacturer as soon as possible.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
And to your knowledge, Toyota has contacted all of the customers who have these vehicles. Is that correct?
10:40 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security Group, Department of Transport
They have undertaken that they would do so. I don't know if we have any confirmation that they have actually contacted everyone.
Louis-Philippe, I don't know if you have anything.
10:40 a.m.
Chief, Defect Investigations and Recalls Branch, Department of Transport
We haven't yet received their first quarterly report in terms of how many people they have reached so far, so we don't have that information yet.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Have you asked for that information from them? I know they have an obligation to provide it, but have you asked for it to be accelerated?
10:40 a.m.
Chief, Defect Investigations and Recalls Branch, Department of Transport
As you mentioned, it's an obligation under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, when a company issues a notice of defect, to basically provide quarterly follow-up reports to determine how many consumers they have reached. We are basically waiting.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Chief, Defect Investigations and Recalls Branch, Department of Transport
I don't have the exact date, but it's forthcoming.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Would you be able to provide to the chair information in relation to when that report is due? Also, have you considered, as a department, asking Toyota for their cooperation to provide that on an early basis? Have you done that?
10:40 a.m.
Chief, Defect Investigations and Recalls Branch, Department of Transport
We will do that.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
All right. Thank you very much.
I just want to make sure that we deal with the issue of safety, because that's obviously the paramount issue. Do you believe that this particular fix, the shim that my colleague, Mr. Watson, referred to, and the caliper mechanism, will fix the issue of the sticky pedal? I understand that moisture might be part of the problem, and obviously Canadian winters are quite a bit different from American winters, so we have different dilemmas as far as weather and moisture go.
Will this shim, this caliper mechanism and change, make these vehicles safe as far as the sticky pedal goes?
10:40 a.m.
Head, Defect Investigations, Defect Investigations and Recalls, Department of Transport
From the engineering perspective, it does change things. The analogy that Toyota has given us does have validity.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Is there any other perspective we should look at in this case other than the engineering perspective?
10:40 a.m.
Head, Defect Investigations, Defect Investigations and Recalls, Department of Transport
Well, I think we need to keep in consideration that Toyota has reported only five cases of this occurring. They have indicated that it's extremely rare, so we do have to look very closely at the cases that are coming forward to try to see what issues are happening. Is it the floor mat? Is it the pedal? Again, we haven't seen a pedal.... Or are there other contributing factors? That's something we consider.
We also have to consider in the process of investigation that there is a potential...some of these cases may be driver error. That's no different from any manufacturer.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
So there are four to five cases, and 20 million vehicles sold in North America by Toyota, isn't that correct?
10:40 a.m.
Head, Defect Investigations, Defect Investigations and Recalls, Department of Transport
The population of the recall would be 400,000.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
With the time we have remaining, I'm going to go around the room one more time. Each party will have three minutes. I will be holding that number tight.
Mr. Volpe.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
I'm going to try to stay with that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I just had a quick glance at the document that was presented to us. Contrary to what I thought I heard Mr. Lehouillier say, I found several instances of sticky pedals early on in the report stage, so it's not something that the department hasn't been aware of for quite some time.
What distresses me is that there's something else missing here as well, and that is a summary of all the complaints. You must have a summary of complaint reports. In fact, I think you do have it. The minister says in a letter to all members of this committee that he “would be pleased to provide members of the Committee with any and all information Transport Canada has in its possession relating to this matter”. So when can we expect the complainant summary report, the details report?
10:40 a.m.
Head, Defect Investigations, Defect Investigations and Recalls, Department of Transport
The public complaints are what we have provided you.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
You must collect these in order to provide a particular profile of a particular vehicle. Because we came here talking about Toyota, it would be about the Toyota products.
For this here, as I've seen it--and thank you very much for bringing it to our attention--I see some of it, but is this all you have on it?
10:40 a.m.
Head, Defect Investigations, Defect Investigations and Recalls, Department of Transport
No, these are the public complaints. You'll see make, model, and year on most complaints. Those are the public complaints we have on file with respect to Toyota. They do not necessarily have the full investigation findings. We can provide that.
This summary was put together in a very short time so you could have the opportunity to see what the Canadian consumer is bringing to the government. Those are the complaints we have.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal