Transport committee  With respect to the sticky accelerator pedal, as I indicated the last time I was before the committee, we have received complaints with respect to acceleration issues, but before the notice of defect was actually brought to our attention, we did not have any particular complaint

Transport committee  As I indicated, we had no particular instances of sticky accelerator pedals before this particular issue was brought to our attention, so we were not studying that specific problem at that time. In terms of manufacturers recalling their vehicles as soon as they determine a safet

Transport committee  Just to go back to the procedure for how we deal with a complaint, as we receive complaints, we investigate each and every one of those complaints. What we will do is try to determine whether or not we can replicate the problem and come up with a determination as to what the issu

Transport committee  As I indicated earlier, Mr. Chair, whenever we feel there is a defect that deserves further pursuit, we then institute an exchange with the manufacturer, distributor, or importer. This exchange can sometimes take some time. We obviously would like issues to be dealt with as quick

Transport committee  What we had, Mr. Chair, were two complaints with respect to the Venza. We felt there was an issue. We had done some analysis. We felt it deserved further follow-up with Toyota. We undertook that follow-up. Again, we would have appreciated it if it had been done more quickly than

Transport committee  As the member is no doubt aware, Mr. Chair, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act is different from the acts that govern vehicle manufacturing in the United States. What we are doing here is that we have to determine whether or not the entities in Canada, Toyota Canada or Toyota Motor Man

Transport committee  Just to correct something, Mr. Chair, I believe I indicated that we receive about 1,200 complaints a year. If I said 12,000, I'm sorry. I meant to say 1,200.

Transport committee  That's fair enough. We deal with it in a two-pronged way, essentially. As you are aware, there are certain complaints that are brought to our attention and we deal with those ourselves. We'll analyze each of those complaints to make a determination about what it may involve and

Transport committee  I'm assuming that you're talking about best practices with respect to the notification of safety defects. Essentially, the way we—

Transport committee  As I said, we don't have a particular code of best practices per se. The manufacturers, importers, and distributors are guided by the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and it's their obligation, if they become aware of a safety-related defect, to advise us of such.

Transport committee  We have a relationship with Toyota similar to those with other manufacturers in the country. Whenever a safety-related defect is either found by us or brought to our attention, there is always a certain amount of give and take. We would always like action sooner rather than later

Transport committee  There's no doubt that it's a complex system. You have to understand that we're dealing with something on the order of 5,000 vehicle manufacturers and importers in Canada. To think that Transport Canada would have complete oversight over every aspect of every vehicle brought into

Transport committee  No. I'll clarify that a bit. In the United States, they have an act called the TREAD act, I believe. What it requires is that manufacturers report defects to NHTSA, whether they occur in the United States or anywhere else in the world. That's a provision we do not have in our law

Transport committee  Certainly to date we have not found anything new with respect to the sticky accelerator issue. But as I indicated earlier, we're still analyzing some of those documents, and we expect to be receiving some further documentation as well.

Transport committee  I would point out, Mr. Chair, that currently we do react to any complaints we receive from the Canadian public. As we testified earlier to the committee, we receive about 1,200 complaints a year with respect to motor vehicle issues, and we investigate each of those complaints. C