Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand in the House of Commons to address the right to repair legislation that we have before us.
Last week, I was on the phone with Mr. Jackson, who has a John Deere tractor. One of the things he was concerned about was the amount of electronics in the tractor and his inability to access the electronics and repair them. We had an extensive conversation about the right to repair. It was interesting.
One of the things he brought up was that a lot of data is put in by the farmer. Modern farming technology uses GPS coordinates, seed rates, soil samples and all kinds of things. That information is put into the tractor to make the calculations, when he is seeding a new crop, of how much fertilizer to put on, what speed to operate at, what the seed rate is and how many pounds of seed per acre he is using. All of these kinds of things are included.
Basically, that is the farmer's intellectual property. That is how he put it as well. It is his seed recipe. It is his farming recipe. To get the tractor and seeder to implement his recipe, he has to enter a lot of data. His concern is that while he is unable to look at and get into the software of the tractor he owns, the tractor is uploading most of the data that he is inputting back to the manufacturer.
Back when that technology was first coming out, he was programming the seeder to do all the seeding and fertilizing. Today, when someone buys a new tractor or seeder, they can press a button to say they are seeding barley and the machine does the set-up for them. It provides someone with a default mix. The seeder and the tractor manufacturers have used the data input by farmers over the last few decades to come up with a generic seed mix that works for folks. The manufacturers can say they have had 100,000 farmers input data into their system.
There does not seem to be a give-and-take in that respect. While farmers seem to put in a lot of data, and the manufacturers work on building programs to allow that, if a farmer's machine breaks down they have to wait for the manufacturer to show up and then they have to pay that manufacturer. Manufacturers have farmers over a barrel. Farmers have 24 days to get their seed in the ground, and cannot really afford three days down.
That was Mr. Jackson's big push in the conversation we had around the right to repair. It was an interesting conversation. That whole story speaks to the balancing act the government has to do in governing this relationship between consumers and manufacturers. Increasingly, of the things that we buy and the technology that we buy, the things we can see and touch are not what is valuable. It is the software that is making those things go.
In talking about the right to repair, my washing machine broke down the other day. I have four children at home, so a washing machine is an important piece of equipment. The computer board that controls the motor went out. I ended up getting a new control board, but the ability to repair those things is helpful and saves time. In an afternoon, I had it torn apart, put back together and operating again.
Regarding the right to repair legislation, off the top of my head, I think the term comes from the agriculture sector and tractors, but also from the automotive sector. When the government was bringing in emissions controls on cars, that technology was expensive. The manufacturers balked at it to a fair extent. Once it was brought in, they said it was proprietary technology and they wanted to maintain control of it. They did not want to lose it. There were a lot of defences put up around that technology.
The government, however, brought in right to repair legislation saying it was emissions-related. No matter where that vehicle is in the world, we need to be able to have those emissions systems repaired.
Over time, we have seen protocols come into place, OBD1 and OBD2, OBD standing for onboard diagnostics. Every vehicle has a connector under the dashboard. It must be within 30 centimetres of the centre line. It is a very standardized connector. I think there were 27 pins, but now it uses about three or four of them. There is a standardized protocol for computer communication. It does not matter which manufacturer is building a diagnostic tool, it has the exact same plug and it communicates with the vehicle. The right to repair legislation has mandated that.
In the 1980s and 1990s, vehicle scanners used 50 different connectors. Today, there is one and there is a standardized protocol for everyone. That is because of the right to repair legislation that came in generations ago.
Automotive aircraft has probably led the way in terms of that kind of technology, but now we see that same kind of computerized technology, which was a challenge for the automotive industry in the 1980s and 1990s, in every area of industry, whether it is a washing machine, cellphone, tractor or the coffee pot. They have computer programming, and they connect to phones.
Recently my dad got a new garage door opener. It connects to the phone. It is Wi-Fi and all that kind of cool stuff. Increasingly, we are dealing with this and we need to communicate with it. In some areas, some manufacturers are very open with their programming and how it works. In other areas, they are very closed with it. That is the reality.
Currently, I am in the frustrating process of switching over my iPad. Apparently my iPad is no longer serviced by Apple. I was talking with the IT folks, telling them that I liked this iPad. The one I am going to get is significantly larger and bulkier and I will have to download all the apps again, and get used to a new device. I am not big on change.
I asked if I could keep the one I had and was told no, because the software was no longer being updated and it would become a security risk. As the hackers get better and better, my device would not be able to compete with them. Therefore, I have to go to a new device. The right to repair would allow a third party to do the updates and maintain them.
There is a definite balancing act that would come with the bill. I know I will be interested to hear what the witnesses have to say in committee, if this bill gets to committee. That is always a challenge. Increasingly, when we buy equipment, we are not so much buying the hardware part, but rather the software and the technology that comes with it. Most modern, large construction equipment is tied 100% back to the factory. It gets data from every input that goes into that machine. There has to be that relationship. When we purchase an item. we then feed that item data and that data often goes back to the manufacturer and the manufacturer either sells the data or uses it to create the next generation of that same item.
As we to go to automation, the data people put into a machine will be used in the automated version of that machine that comes out. There has to be a give and take. If the companies use our data, we ought to be able to repair older technology, older data.
I am pleased to see this bill come forward. I look forward to supporting it going to committee, and I look forward to the discussion that will happen there.