Evidence of meeting #20 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I have two questions for you. Do you think what Toyota Canada did was good enough? Second, could you have done better?
10:30 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
Well, Mr. Jean, I guess there are two aspects of the question. One is that we acted as soon as we had knowledge of a safety defect.
10:30 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
No, it was at the moment we had knowledge of the safety defect.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
It was 90 days after. You were aware that Toyota had an issue here in Canada in November of 2009, and then you acted in 2010.
10:30 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
The knowledge of an issue is different from the knowledge of a safety defect.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Toyota Japan also had notice of it well before that and they are a 50% owner of Toyota Canada.
10:30 a.m.
Managing Director, Toyota Canada Inc.
Again, at that time, Toyota Motor Corporation was investigating the pedals that had been recovered from the field.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Mr. Beatty, I would suggest to you that it is notice; they had notice of that defect and that it would in fact, or could, cause safety issues for a consumer. I would suggest that.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Thank you, Mr. Jean.
I have to go to Mr. Volpe. We're in our last round.
Mr. Volpe.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We've now insinuated Mr. McDonald into this discussion. I can't help but share the view that Mr. Jean has just expressed: that the time lag between the company becoming aware and actually doing something is troubling, to say the very least.
What's even more troubling, Mr. McDonald, is that you recognized there was a problem. In the particular case I indicated earlier on with the Venza, it took Toyota Canada 11 weeks after you had given them an indication of your express concern that they might actually be in violation of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. You allowed them—I don't know whether you did it, whether the deputy did it, or whether you had instructions from the minister—to wait for 11 weeks while a faulty or defective vehicle was on the road.
Why would you have done that?
10:35 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
As I indicated earlier, Mr. Chair, whenever we feel there is a defect that deserves further pursuit, we then institute an exchange with the manufacturer, distributor, or importer. This exchange can sometimes take some time. We obviously would like issues to be dealt with as quickly as possible.
That being said, we do have to give the company time to react to what we're proposing to them, to determine whether in their estimation they feel it is a safety defect and to determine how they're going to react to it. This does take some interchange and exchange of information.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. McDonald, you wouldn't have given the first notice to Toyota unless your field investigator or investigators had already gone through the engineering and scientific analysis to warrant giving them a warning. Why, after having done all of that scientific research, would you tolerate their waiting another 11 weeks before they acted?
Clearly, you already knew there was a safety-related problem. You already knew there was potential danger. Why would you let the company keep those vehicles on the road when you already had done the scientific assessment for them?
10:35 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
What we had, Mr. Chair, were two complaints with respect to the Venza. We felt there was an issue. We had done some analysis. We felt it deserved further follow-up with Toyota. We undertook that follow-up. Again, we would have appreciated it if it had been done more quickly than the 11 weeks it took, but in the end, we did get Toyota to take action on this particular issue.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. McDonald, you've now admitted that you received an additional 9,000 pages of material from Toyota that you probably wouldn't have received if the committee hadn't become interested and if the Americans hadn't pressed to get the same information.
My question is the following. The Americans, basing their assessment in part on material gleaned from the Canadian experience, were able to lay the most serious and biggest fine of its kind on Toyota, which Toyota paid willingly to avoid other issues. In Canada, after receiving 9,000 sheets, all you're able to say is, “We're doing an assessment of what's contained in them and we don't know where we're going to go next”.
10:35 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
As the member is no doubt aware, Mr. Chair, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act is different from the acts that govern vehicle manufacturing in the United States. What we are doing here is that we have to determine whether or not the entities in Canada, Toyota Canada or Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, knew of a safety-related defect and did not take action as a result of that.
That's the particular investigation we're undertaking. If we do find that they were aware of the safety defect before they brought it to our attention, then we would take appropriate action in that regard.
10:35 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McDonald, according to your analysis, among the 12,000 complaints you say you received, did some of them have to do with the gas pedal defect that was the subject of a recall?
10:35 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Just to correct something, Mr. Chair, I believe I indicated that we receive about 1,200 complaints a year. If I said 12,000, I'm sorry. I meant to say 1,200.
10:40 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
With respect to the sticky accelerator pedal, as I indicated the last time I was before the committee, we have received complaints with respect to acceleration issues, but before the notice of defect was actually brought to our attention, we did not have any particular complaint that we would have categorized as falling into the category that we are now dealing with.
10:40 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
When you receive a complaint about a problem or a potential danger, even if it has not been proven, do you act immediately and do you ask the manufacturer whether they have received directly complaints that you did not receive? Do you make that request in order to determine if the problem is serious and widespread?
I noted earlier, in your answer to a question from Mr. Watson, I believe, that you said that Toyota has been as cooperative as other manufacturers. Toyota has an image. It is headquartered in Japan. One might think that the company is far away and that therefore there is no communication. But you say you get as much cooperation from them as from other companies. However, I do not find this answer really reassuring. If your requirements in terms of cooperation are limited, any company can meet them. I would like you to elaborate on this aspect.
Furthermore, do you think it would be reasonable to require that all complaints received directly by the manufacturer be forwarded to you, in order to be able to really meet your responsibility for safety on behalf of the government?
10:40 a.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Just to go back to the procedure for how we deal with a complaint, as we receive complaints, we investigate each and every one of those complaints. What we will do is try to determine whether or not we can replicate the problem and come up with a determination as to what the issue might be. It may be a safety issue. It may be something totally different. It may be a driveability issue. It may be an operator issue; it may be problems the operator had.
In dealing with those complaints, however, we will also contact the manufacturer or distributor. In this case, it would be Toyota Canada. We would advise them of complaints we've received and ask them if they've received any similar complaints. We would analyze our own databases to see if we've received any similar complaints and if there is any trend here, and whether that might give us any indication with respect to a potential problem.