Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate, and I want to commend the member for Bourassa for introducing this bill and for speaking so powerfully about this major challenge. I would like to commend him for his speech, in which he outlined the benefits that workers will enjoy if the measures outlined in the bill are implemented.
I want to thank the other participants in the debate, too, including the member for Peace River—Westlock, who I think has a lot of experience and knowledge to share in the very particular matters that this bill covers.
I want to commend the comments made by the member for Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj and the member for Repentigny. I commend the Bloc Québécois for supporting this bill and recognizing the work done by the member for Bourassa. I, too, would like to commend the efforts made by the Province of Quebec and by the people of Quebec to be leaders on this issue.
I also want to thank the member for Scarborough—Woburn, who, in previous parliaments and in Ontario, has been a very strong champion of the right to repair. We are standing on the shoulders, as has been said, of the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba and the European Union. Ontario is making steps.
When we think about the idea of the right to repair, it may not be a human right, but repair is fundamental to all that is human, so this piece of legislation is a very human endeavour that puts humans back in control of technology and of the things that are increasingly governing us.
I want to thank our friend from Bourassa for shining a light on this and for making a very strong statement that it will stop; that we are working in the opposite direction, where humans are going to be in control of technology; that we have, as humans, this intimate connection with the things around us; and that we have a right to repair.
It brings to mind a recent book that has come out by Stewart Brand called Maintenance: Of Everything. Stewart Brand has always been on the cusp of the latest thinking about technology, human connectedness and the great ideas of our time. I want to quote from Maintenance: Of Everything at some length because I think it captures the humanity that the member for Bourassa captured so well in his speech and the thing that is driving all of us, and is driving the frustrations behind and benefits from this legislation. The frustrations have been articulated by my colleagues across the way, as well as the benefits that this legislation could bring.
Mr. Brand writes in his book:
Maintenance is what keeps everything going. It’s what keeps life going.
Every living thing spends a great deal of time and toil in maintaining its own life and the life of the systems it depends on. Plants tend the life of the soil they grow in. Beavers maintain their dams and thereby the pond that protects them. Humans maintain their bodies, their vehicles, their homes, and their cities, along with much else. Nearly everything worth maintaining is nested in something larger even more worth maintaining.
But so much of doing maintenance is tiresome. Brush the damn teeth, change the damn oil. They are unrewarding chores—repetitive, boring, often frustrating, and endless. Since that part of maintenance is a pain, we shirk it, defer it, fail to budget time or money for it, let it drop to the bottom of the priority list. That’s easy to do because the necessity of maintenance accumulates invisibly and gradually. Then suddenly one day the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops in a turmoil of disruption, expense, and blame.
A number of us have experienced this with our mobile devices. I was just in conversation with my wife, who shared her frustration about the latest mishap with her phone.
I will go back to Stewart Brand:
The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later.
Neglect kills.
What to do?
What I so appreciate about our moment in the House is that the member for Bourassa has asked, what to do? What to do about this paradox, where maintenance is important? We delay it, but we are nested in even greater systems that are worth maintaining, which, for Stewart Brand, is ultimately the entire earth.
The member for Bourassa's response is that we are going to do something about this. We are going to take inspiration from those who care about maintenance and who have the connectivity to their devices and appliances, as so well described by the member for Peace River—Westlock, harkening back to perhaps a time when there was a more intimate connection between the manufacturers' devices and those who used the devices. Now too often the manufacturers of devices are far away from us. The beneficiaries of the economy in which maintenance is devalued are often outside of Canada, but we can do something about this. We can pass this bill.
As far as I can tell, and it has been articulated by some of my colleagues across the way, the bill would have three main benefits: environmental benefits, customer savings and economic activity.
The environmental benefits of maintenance and the cost of not investing in maintenance are very clear. I have data from Equiterre, which published a survey eight years ago. We have with us in the House the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, who has close ties to this very important non-governmental organization. A growing number of electronics and household appliances are becoming obsolete every year. In 2016, 44.7 million tonnes of electronic waste were generated worldwide. Five years later, the increase in the amount of waste was estimated at 17%.
Home appliances and electronics generate 44.7 million tonnes of waste worldwide. This is an eight-year-old figure. Canadians know about this and they are frustrated by this. In fact, too many Canadians and too many people around the world have given up because they assume that we cannot do anything about this.
In a 2018 survey, 86% of respondents indicated that they believe home appliances and electronics are deliberately designed with short lifespans, and 80% of respondents reported that they purchased their devices new. In an economy that has all these devices around, people are having to buy these new devices, specifically electronic devices, because they do not last long enough. The planned obsolescence issues, as noted, are key. In the survey, 61% of Canadians kept their electronic devices for less than five years. When it came to home appliances, it was 45%.
There is something we can do about this. We can attend to the environmental benefits. This piece of framework legislation, and let us bring it to committee as soon as possible, would allow Canadians down the road to have the ability to, we hope, attend to their devices in the way that Stewart Brand described and not send them as quickly to the scrap heap.
Customer savings are clearly key in this time when Canadians are concerned about affordability. Again, we are sending money to device manufacturers and appliance manufacturers, too often, overseas. The member for Bourassa spoke so passionately about the kinds of people he sees every day who are facing choices about what to do with their piece of technology that has broken too quickly. The customer savings that are possible if we implement this legislation successfully, I think, are very promising.
Then there is the economic activity. This piece of legislation could create a new set of industries, a new set of apprentices, and we have learned a bit in the spring economic statement about the upcoming apprenticeship benefits. Imagine a new generation of young workers who are working in shops on their main streets locally, doing this kind of repair at a fraction of the cost that it takes to buy a new device, keeping that money home, creating economies across Canada. Wherever we have a device, whether it is urban or rural, we need someone to repair that device. It brings to mind, for me, in my riding, the Parkdale People's Economy, an effort that really shined a light on how we need to do some of our economic activity differently.
As the member for Bourassa said so clearly, the right to repair may not be a human right but it is fundamental to what it means to be human. Let us bring this legislation to committee. Let us reclaim a bit of what makes us human. Let us say that these technologies, these devices, do not rule us but that we rule them, that we are in partnership with each other and that we can have a better quality of life. We can experience the benefits of being in a community by having a relationship with these devices, with these appliances and with these technologies that is more human and more in line with the rest of the economy and the rest of the community in which we find ourselves.
Pass the bill. Let us take inspiration from the member for Bourassa. Let us take inspiration from Stewart Brand. Let us take inspiration from the European Union, Quebec, Manitoba and elsewhere. Let us send the bill to committee.