Madam Speaker, you are looking well and it is great to have you in the chair.
I want to talk about a principle most Canadians would consider common sense: If someone owns something, they should be able to fix it. Canada has already done meaningful work on this file. Bill C-244 and Bill C-294 removed copyright barriers that were being used to block repairs on digital devices.
The member for Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, a close friend of mine, introduced Bill C-294 specifically because he understood what those restrictions were doing to agriculture, mining, construction and forestry industries in Saskatchewan. He named them explicitly.
Those bills were real, they targeted action and they deserve credit.
I want to thank the member for Bourassa for bringing this bill forward. He has identified a genuine problem and put in the work to bring it here. The frustration behind this bill is legitimate. Canadians should have better options when the products they own break down, but this bill is not the right answer and I will explain why. When governments get the right to repair right, they act where the need is greatest. They create actual rights, not frameworks and not consultation processes, but rights.
In 2023, Colorado became the first American state to pass an agricultural right to repair law, the Consumer Right to Repair Agricultural Equipment Act. It guaranteed farmers and independent mechanics access to the software and repair materials needed to fix tractors and other agricultural equipment. That was a law. It created real rights in one day.
The Federal Trade Commission then filed an antitrust lawsuit against John Deere in January 2025, alleging the company had monopolized the repair market by withholding diagnostic tools. Earlier this month, a class action lawsuit against John Deere settled for $99 million, with a 10-year commitment to make diagnostic tools available to farmers and independent shops.
There are now 16 states that have active agricultural right to repair legislation. American farmers running John Deere equipment now have legal tools their Canadian counterparts do not. This is a competitive disadvantage baked into the regulatory gap.
Prairie producers are already carrying cost pressures their American competitors do not face in the same way: industrial carbon pricing, fertilizer costs, higher fuel costs and input costs that cannot be passed down to a buyer who sets the price on global commodity markets. Canadian farmers are price-takers. They absorb every additional cost at the farm gate. This is one more structural disadvantage stacking up.
My riding of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan is bigger than Switzerland. It is five square kilometres bigger than Switzerland, with 41,290 square kilometres of agricultural land, rural communities and some of the most productive grain and canola in Canada. Across the entire riding, there are three authorized John Deere service locations. Colorado figured out how to give its farmers real options. This bill would not give the farmers in my riding any.
I want to be clear this is not a criticism of equipment dealers. They serve their customers well and are part of the communities I represent. They play a vital role. The problem is the software lock. A farmer near Craik or Tugaske cannot hand their local mechanic the diagnostic tool they need because the manufacturer controls access to it. If someone has the right software, the repair takes an afternoon. Without it, they wait for the one authorized technician who has the key. In Saskatchewan, harvest windows are measured in days, not weeks. A two-day repair delay is not an inconvenience; it can be a crop.
The agriculture sector made exactly this case during the government's own right-to-repair consultations in 2024. The National Cattle Feeders' Association told ISED directly that farmers face an uncompetitive scenario and are forced to accept the costs and repair schedules of manufacturers. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture called for legislation compelling manufacturers to provide access. Alberta Grains, representing over 18,000 wheat and barley farmers, submitted that producers were so frustrated with repair monopolies that some would rather operate less advanced equipment they could actually fix.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada held its own targeted round tables specifically on farm equipment and interoperability. The sector showed up. The government ran dedicated round tables on the exact gap this bill would leave open, and the bill before the House today does not contain the word “agriculture”.
The bill before us has two problems. The first is what the bill fails to do and the second is what the bill would do.
On the first point, the bill's scope is explicitly for electronic products and essential home appliances, defined as devices intended for regular household use. That definition closes the door entirely on agricultural equipment. A framework covering dishwashers and smart phones but not combines is not a right-to-repair framework for the producers who feed this country.
On the second point, this bill would not just address repairability. It would establish minimum durability standards and a federal regulatory framework over consumer product design and manufacturing. I understand the consumer appeal of that. Canadians are right to be frustrated when products are built to fail, but we need to be honest about what this bill would be. It would be a new federal regulatory layer over a broad category of consumer products on top of provincial consumer protection regimes that are already moving on this file.
Quebec's Bill 29 is active. Ontario is advancing its own legislation. The provinces are acting. Ottawa adding a parallel federal durability standards framework on top of that provincial action is not simplification. It is duplication.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business just released its report entitled “Canada's Entrepreneurial Drought”. Canada is in a sustained period where business exits outpace new entries every single quarter. In Saskatchewan specifically, net business creation has been negative for most of the past decade. Regulatory compliance costs Canadian businesses $51.5 billion annually, with nearly $18 billion of that attributed to pure red tape. About 87% of small business owners say that excessive regulation significantly reduces their ability to grow.
This week, leading Canadian industry groups told the Financial Times that federal red tape is costing the country more than Trump's tariffs. Nutrien, headquartered in Saskatchewan, chose to build a $1-billion port in Washington state over Canada's west coast, citing Canadian regulation as a key factor in that decision. This is not the moment to add another federal framework to the pile.
I cannot support this bill. It is not because the right to repair is wrong, as it is not. It is not because the member for Bourassa's concern is misplaced, as it is not. I oppose this bill because it would deliver a new regulatory framework when the provinces are already at work.