Evidence of meeting #72 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was audit.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Kim Benjamin  Director General, Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation, Department of Transport
Michael Ferguson  Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Richard Domingue  Principal, Office of the Auditor General

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

Welcome to your departmental officials as well.

The Auditor General's fall 2016 report stated:

Overall, we found that Transport Canada did not develop motor vehicle safety standards to respond to emerging risks and issues in a timely manner.

It went on to say:

We could not always determine how the Department used evidence and research to develop or amend safety standards.

In the case of Bill S-2, this bill would give the minister and his or her department significant new powers. I'm wondering if you could tell us what, if any, attempts have been made to resolve some of those issues that have been raised by the Auditor General.

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

Yes. I don't have at the top of my mind the years that were being covered by the Auditor General's report. Certainly we have looked at the Auditor General's report, and we take it very seriously. As I say, we will be responding through the public accounts committee to the recommendations that were made to address the issues brought up by the Auditor General. Yes, there are some things that we can do better on. We will be taking that very seriously.

I understand that the Auditor General did find some things that we were doing well, so that's good news. There was our ability to identify vehicle safety defects, which is fairly crucial in this whole thing as part of ensuring...when they're not necessarily brought to us by the manufacturer. We're keeping on top of that to identify defects that are out there.

I can't tell you exactly what will be tabled in Parliament fairly soon, but it will be our response to the public accounts committee's study of the Auditor General's report. Perhaps at that point if there are questions you feel still need to be asked, I would welcome them.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

Thank you very much.

I do want to speak to another measure in Bill S-2. Bill S-2 increases the power of Transport Canada inspectors to visit facilities and compel documents and testimony from employees in order to demonstrate compliance. What would trigger a visit by Transport Canada for a company to demonstrate compliance? This isn't based on complaints; it's just that they can go in and ask for this information. What would trigger a visit by Transport Canada?

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

Probably the quick answer is exceptional circumstances and, hopefully, these are powers that would not be necessary. As I say, at Transport Canada, we want to make sure that the whole process of ensuring that cars are safe—and it actually goes from motorcycles to trucks.... If we are not being provided with information we feel is necessary in order to understand anything related to addressing a defect, then we are giving ourselves that power to do it. As I say, I think it would be in exceptional circumstances.

I am very confident that we will have very few situations in which that kind of ministerial power or inspector power will be invoked, because I think we will work well with the manufacturing sector. We're giving ourselves that flexibility should it be necessary.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

I want to ask about the fact that this bill was introduced in the Senate, and that question was asked a fair bit during the debate in the House of Commons by all members who may not have the answer to that question. With you here at the table, would you be able or willing to answer why this piece of legislation came to the House of Commons through the Senate?

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

Yes, with pleasure, and it's not very complicated. This was a bill that we wanted to put into the system very quickly in the early days. As you know, when a new Parliament starts, there's a blank slate in both Houses in terms of what kind of legislation is going to be put forward. The Senate, as you know, can take a bill from the government and pass it through there. It doesn't have to always start in the House. They were willing to begin looking at Bill S-2, one which your government in an earlier version introduced. It was just one of those situations. There's nothing mysterious about it. It was a question of flow through. There are many bills that new governments introduce and at this particular point, there was an availability of resources in the Senate to study this bill.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you, Ms. Block.

We move to Mr. Sikand.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

I'd like to follow up on my colleague's previous line of questioning, and perhaps just take a step back, because I was really surprised to hear that your office, and you, the minister, didn't have these powers before, so I'm happy to hear that Bill S-2 is coming forward. I'd like to know how you envision these powers being exercised. I'd imagine a situation has deteriorated to the point that you're being forced to act. Are recalls going to be ordered in conjunction with manufacturers? How is this going to be rolled out?

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

I think many Canadians think that, at the moment, we have the ability in the Government of Canada to order recalls. They're not aware of the fact that the law at the moment only orders a notice of defect to be put out by the manufacturer, but we don't have those. That's in part because the manufacturers very often follow through, and they proceed with the recall and repair, which speaks well for them.

As my colleague Kim Benjamin said, there were a few instances where there was a difference of opinion. From our point of view, from our expertise at Transport Canada, our inspections and what have you, and feedback from the public, we felt that in these three cases we weren't hearing from the manufacturer to say that there's a defect. In fact, they disagreed with us. That's one of the situations where the power of the minister can be invoked. We hope it won't happen very often, but there can be instances. There are so many models out there, and there's so much technology, that it's important for us to have that capability if we feel strongly that the defect needs to be addressed.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

You just mentioned that you weren't hearing from manufacturers. Keeping Canadians' safety top of mind, I don't want to see a situation where there's a foreign company which has cars operating in Canada, and perhaps incorporated there, and by virtue of that incorporation they're sheltered from legal action. I'd like to know how Bill S-2 is going to address those foreign companies operating within our country.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

The law is addressing both manufacturers and importers of cars, so we feel that any car or vehicle that's going to be on our roads has to be safe, and that includes imported.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Thank you.

I'd like to pass over any remaining time I have to Mr. Badawey.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

With respect to the process, Minister, I'm quite excited about it, because it is taking something that's long overdue and bringing it up to date.

That said, it gives the perspective of 2017 in relation to safety. What I'm most interested in, however, is that it's also an opportunity. It's an opportunity to look down the road and take into consideration not only the perspective of 2017, but the possibility of the perspective of 2030 and going well into the future. I think a lot of this was spoken about earlier in relation to taking safety into consideration in an environment of quickly evolving new technologies.

Having said that, and being more proactive versus reactive—reactive being defects and responding after the fact—is there an opportunity here? Can we leverage this process to encourage manufacturers to accelerate new technologies in the name of returns on environmental, social, and economic investments, therefore being more proactive with respect to those new technologies and, of course, with that, the safety that can be dealt with by those new technologies?

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

If we had a crystal ball now and were to look at our roads in 2030, which is only 13 years from now, I think we would all be a bit surprised at how this disruptive new technology has implanted itself on our roads in the country, and hopefully for the better. I would say to you that my sense, from following what's happening with the development of autonomous vehicles, is that the business forces are already very actively pushing this.

We've all heard of Tesla, but as you know, there are many other companies. Audi is another example, but Google, Apple, the Big Three, and many European companies such as BMW and others are all scrambling, because they want to own as big a part of that market as possible. I think they are highly motivated. We don't know.

We can have a discussion about the availability of ZEVs, but that's a different discussion. On autonomous vehicles, I think they are self-motivated, and they are developing these. Of course, they know their success will be that it has to be safe, cleaner, and provide all the advantages, which we believe will be accessibility and those kinds of things. I think there are enough motivational forces in play. We don't need to coax them along too much on that.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you, Mr. Badawey.

We'll move to Mr. Chong.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

Minister, thank you for coming. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you're going to be proposing amendments to the bill. I assume that's not in the House but in committee, through the Liberal members on the committee. Is that correct?

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

It will be in committee.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

I assume that means, then, that you're not supportive of the amendment that was made to the bill in the Senate. I think it's on proposed section 10.52. Is that also correct?

September 26th, 2017 / 4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

We thank the Senate for engaging with the dealers—

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

But you don't agree with that part of the bill—

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

What we've done is we've worked with the Canadian dealers to find something that we feel they are happy with.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

You're not in agreement with what they've proposed as an amendment, the amendment they made to the bill—

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

No, not as written. Let me explain why. The reason is that this is the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. It does not get into managing the relationship between dealers and manufacturers. That's outside the scope of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, but we have looked to find a way to, I think, make all parties happy and—

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

That will be done through—

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marc Garneau Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC

—you will be deciding in your wisdom whether you want to go with that.