Evidence of meeting #73 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 recall.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you.
My next question goes to Mr. Nantais.
When you went before the Senate, you recommended that the minister’s power to prohibit sales be replaced by the minister having the power to order vehicle manufacturers and importers to issue warnings to dealers.
Do you see the minister’s order and the warning as having exactly the same mandatory force for the dealers?
President, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
The comment I made at the time was in reference to holding the vehicle manufacturers criminally and administratively responsible for the actions of a business person we have no control over. The recommendation, then and now, would tend to provide a little more formality and strength to the message we would want to send to dealers who may be thinking about the retail sale of a vehicle subject to what we call a “stop-sale order”. We would still recommend that. We do that as manufacturers now, but if we were going to be held criminally responsible, we don't think that would be appropriate or fair to us. That's why we provided some additional language about this in our written submission.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Okay.
I always have a little difficulty when bills contain words that lead to interpretation, like “reasonable” criteria. It happens in clause 8.1, which deals with the tests that the minister can require.
Do you have a definition of what might appear “reasonable” to you?
President, Global Automakers of Canada
Not at this point, but I think we would like to come up with one and provide that to the committee.
President, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
I do think it's fair to say that in a legal context, my understanding is that there is some definition of what the term “reasonable” or “reasonableness” means, and those who are lawyers around the table might be able to comment.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Why don't we follow up on that issue? “Reasonableness” certainly is a term of art in law, but I find it a very flexible one that can fit the circumstances as the better advocate would make it, and I prefer certainty in these things.
I'm thinking of the circumstance here. How does this actually play out? If we say that something's reasonable, somebody else could take a contrary view. How does the fight over what's going to be reasonable shake out if there's an amendment here that actually puts a reasonableness into the collection and use of information? Would there have to be some kind of an adjudicator? Would you end up in court each time that you think the government's overstepping? I'm trying to piece together what this is going to look like on the ground.
President, Global Automakers of Canada
I think the minister may have highlighted on Tuesday, and Mark alluded to it as well, that the intention would be that these particular sections would be used in rare instances where information isn't voluntarily provided. However, I think part of the concern comes down to the language around “that the Minister considers necessary”. Maybe take it away from reasonableness. Part of the issue goes into how the minister determines what he considers necessary. You'd like to think at the end of the day that a lot of the lead-up to that would be evidence-based before you ever got to the road where the minister would make a consideration of what's necessary and want to invoke the testing.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
We spent a lot of time on the reasonableness thing. I might just move to a different issue.
I think, Mr. Nantais, the third issue that you raised was around getting a message that's going to sink into your consumers and not being too prescriptive in sending form letters that are going to wear them out. Anecdotes are helpful to me, but do you actually keep data on the most effective way of reaching your users, and if so, what have you found?
President, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
I think it's fair to say that companies—whether it's trying to identify sales opportunities or whether it's how they conduct their business in terms of customer satisfaction—include things like recall response rates and so forth. The key point I wanted to make very clearly is that putting something in the act and defining it specifically, which would generate letters upon letters, really is not going to serve anybody very well. What we're suggesting here is to go back to the regulations. In section 15, it spells out all the information that should go into consumer notification. If we want to add to that, then we can more easily change the regulation, but, more importantly—I think someone touched upon it earlier—if we want to get to consumers and we want to increase response rates, then what's the best way to do that in this age? That's through electronic means: websites, social media, Facebook. Companies are all moving in that direction.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Maybe on this, I can toss an idea out and either one of you can offer comment.
In a court context, again, when you serve legal documents on someone and they're evading service or you can't track them down, there are other ways the court will let you do it if you can prove that the person actually accessed the documents or would have seen them. Sometimes they'll even be satisfied if you take an ad out in the newspaper. Some recent case law has allowed serving people on Facebook. Would you be open to some kind of a solution where you were able to demonstrate a person got the message somehow? That's why you're sending it to certain addresses. You've done your diligence to demonstrate that this person should have gotten it, given the information you have.
President, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
The way we look at it is it doesn't stop there. We go into registration files, and so forth. Companies spend a considerable amount of money trying to track down the right owner, whether it was first owner, second owner, or even third owner in some cases. Some of these things go back at least 10 years even, and yet there's still an effort to go out and find that current owner. But we have a better way to do this, and it's one that's evolving.
Liberal
President, Global Automakers of Canada
I'll make a quick comment. I know we've been working through the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators to try to get all of the provinces to talk to one another and better share the registration data. That database needs a lot of work because a lot of the information we get back is not accurate.
We've also been looking at—to your point—other ways to try to get to consumers. As Mr. Iny mentioned earlier, at the time that a consumer goes to register their vehicle is it not worthwhile talking to the provinces to say, look, advise the consumer when they register their vehicle that they have an outstanding recall and that they need to get it fixed. You might not necessarily prevent them from registering the vehicle or renewing their licence, but you can say, if you don't get it fixed in three months, or whatever—
Liberal
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
I think that's a valid point. As we were speaking about in the last session with the witnesses, there has to be more communication between the different levels of government to actually look after some of these things, otherwise the water falls through the cracks, and that's not a good thing.
I want to go back to the technologies again. We've had this discussion in the past whereby, let's face it, five years, 10 years, probably sooner rather than later, down the road we're going to see smart phones on wheels, and, with that said, a lot of factors with respect to safety.
Mr. Adams, you made the comment in your presentation that “flexibility, used prudently, should allow Canada to better stay at the forefront of new technological advancements and any regulatory regime required to support them.” Can you elaborate on that?
September 28th, 2017 / 5:10 p.m.
President, Global Automakers of Canada
Sure. I think the intention of Bill S-2 is to provide the flexibility to develop the necessary regulatory regimes, if indeed they do become necessary, around things like automated vehicles and whatnot.
I know, from watching previous committee hearings, it's a concern with some of the members that we're not up to date with the U.S. or other jurisdictions. In some ways, that may not necessarily be a bad thing at this point in time. I think there's always a risk of over-regulating and stifling innovation, but at the same time our view would be that there is a role for the federal government to play in setting a regulatory framework for Canada on things like automated vehicles, recognizing that at the end of the day it ultimately is a shared issue with the provinces.
Ontario has a testing regime for automated vehicles right now, and other provinces are looking at that, but that deals with testing, not the regulation of the use of the vehicles on the road.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
You also mentioned in your last paragraph that there were “other sections in this bill as amended by the Senate that raise concerns for our members”. But your time was expired, so I want to give you this opportunity now to elaborate on that comment.
President, Global Automakers of Canada
I think my concerns would be pretty much accurately reflected in the comments that Mr. Nantais made about his other concerns with the bill. We happened to share one about proposed subsection 8.1(1), but the other issues that he has raised would be concerns of our members as well.
