Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today in support of this motion.
I want to begin by thanking the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, the chair of the industry committee. It is important for people to know that our committee, not only on this bill, is an example of the parliamentary process for a number of different reasons. The first and foremost reason is that the chair provides a fair and balanced approach, which is appreciated for many other pieces of legislation, as well as this one.
I would also like to thank the member for Saint John who just spoke. It is important to recognize that when this bill went through its first vote in the House of Commons, it passed with a margin of 248 in favour. I thank all those members who considered the importance of this bill, and that is critical.
I would also like to thank the parliamentary secretary, the member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, because this has been very much a challenging issue. I have spent three years on this bill trying to get a result, hopefully, for Canadians. If it had not been for working through problems, I do not think we would actually see a solution, which is now the CASIS agreement. As noted earlier, this is a provision that is new to Canada, which is something important to recognize. It has been available in the United States. The Americans actually have a different system. They have a system that is a national automotive service task force but it is backstopped by legislation.
I believe, though, that this bill is no longer necessary because there has been an agreement reached by all parties involved and I believe there will be enough public pressure on that.
I also would recognize that the current Minister of Industry and the previous minister of industry took interest in this, and I thank them both for doing so, to ensure Canadian consumers are protected.
I do want to impress upon people the importance of this bill in terms of what it means. It is important not just in terms of competition but it means a cleaner environment and it means public safety.
What was happening in our country is that we were literally being treated as a colony in many respects. We were being treated differently from the United States, Europe and other jurisdictions where new technology relating to onboard diagnostics, computerization literally of the automobile, was not being successfully passed on to the aftermarket industry. The end result was that Canadians could not get the best service or the most competitive prices.
What it meant for many of these aftermarket garages, many of which I visited across the country over a number of years, is that we would see technicians in Canada, who were better trained than those in the United States, who could not successfully repair vehicles because they could not download a program, for example, which is a real quick and easy thing to do. They wanted to pay for it and wanted to ensure it was done within the law but at the same time they were not provided it.
Meanwhile, the people in Windsor, Ontario, where I am from, could drive their cars over to Detroit, Michigan and get the same type of service from somebody less trained because the information was being provided by that company. Quite frankly, there were some companies that were better than others. General Motors is better, in general, about providing this information. Ford has recently released more of its information to comply with the spirit of the agreement which comes into effect later on, but will roll out, I hope, a very successful program. I believe the minister in this Parliament will have a due diligence to ensure that Canadians are treated fairly past the date of this bill.
When we look at the aftermarket, it is important to recognize its significance. This concerns over 200,000 jobs in Canada. I come from the auto sector. In terms of the auto industry, and Windsor being the auto capital of Canada, a bill like this would be seen with some type of curiosity. People may wonder why the member who represents the area of the auto market would bring in a bill that some of the auto companies were very opposed to. The reason is that after we sat down and started talking to some of these small shop owners and to the consumers, we saw what was going to take place. We were going to lose some very successful businesses across this country and we were going to see people even in the rural areas having to drive hundreds of kilometres further to get their vehicles serviced because of unfair competition, in my perspective, with the unavailability of codes, training and diagnostic equipment that was being provided in other nations across the globe, and particularly the United States, our neighbour.
That is why I introduced the bill and I would like to thank my family for putting up with travelling across the country to promote this.
I think of the people who have been part of this, and first and foremost are Nancy and Roger Suranyi of Namao Automotive who live just outside of Edmonton. I had a chance to really see the spirit of what was happening. They could not provide the same services they once did. Their facility was as clean as a whistle and their technicians were very well trained. It had been a family business for many years but they were slowly losing business related to the aftermarket. They could not get the same codes and equipment that were available before. In looking around the facility, not only did we see vehicles that needed repair but we also saw other vehicles, like a school bus, an ambulance and other types of service vehicles. I saw them in Windsor as well when I went to visit John Sawatsky of MSJ Automotive. We would have our Windsor police cruisers and ambulances in there.
The loss of this other business puts these businesses at risk and, subsequently, the service of other types of fleets of vehicles that we need a strong aftermarket for because they are not serviced through the normal dealership associations that are available.
That is why I introduced a bill in the previous Parliament which, at that time, was Bill C-425 and now it is Bill C-273 in this Parliament. It was fortunate enough to be selected high on the order paper.
It has been a great experience because I have learned more about Canadian business and the spirit of competition through this process than I ever thought I would. I would like to thank my staff who put up with this as well: Mohammed Pierre, Melanie Namespetra, Darlene Dunn Mahler, Karen Boise and Kieren MacKenzie, and all the volunteers we have because we really worked with a team. This took a lot of extra resources. Without their constant support, I would not have been able to go across the country.
I think about people I met, like Art Wilderman from the Canadian Independent Automotive Association, Bento from Toronto, John Strickey of Midas Auto Service in Halifax, Ron Jones of Mid-Island Automotive in Nanaimo and Mario Schuchardt of Canadian Tire in Burnaby. Those people often represented people who did not have a voice in the previous process. The aftermarket association had been advocating for a change for many years and, in my opinion, there had not been the respect paid to the industry that was necessary. Hence, the legislation was seen as the alternative because they could not go any further.
I also would like to thank a number of people from AIA: John Cochrane, Larry Goudge, Marc Brazeau, Deborah Moynes-Keshen, Mireille Schippers, Patty Kettles, Christine Farquharson and Scott Smith who I particularly want to recognize because he worked diligently on this bill and spent a lot of time away from his family. Also from the association were John Watt, Brad Morris and Mauro Cifelli.
It was an interesting group to work with because we saw medium and small businesses that banded together to bring forth an issue.
What we get with this agreement, the Canadian automotive service information standard, is a voluntary agreement that I am hoping the minister will keep a strong eye on. I am sure it will come to fruition. There will now be a process in place for the disbursement of the information, the codes, the technical information for the equipment, as well as the training capability.
It is very important that we recognize that none of this is to be provided for free. What they are asking for is the right to compete and that is why the bill has come forward. There is now a process in place to regulate the actual advancement of the codes, the training and the technology. There is also a dispute mechanism if there is a problem with regard to the releasing of that.
It is also important to note that it will no longer be a dog's breakfast in terms of which company will provide information and when. There would be a process in place for fair competition for all Canadians, which is good for public safety, for the environment and for consumers to choose the right to repair.