Canada Eyes Right To Repair Protections In Latest Budget
from the truly-owning-the-things-you-buy dept
The Canadian government is hopping aboard the right to repair bandwagon.
The Canadian federal government’s 2023 budget includes language indicating that it will attempt to implement meaningful right to repair reforms by 2024, alongside a new five-year tax credit worth $4.5 billion for Canadian clean tech manufacturers, and the potential adoption of Canadian federal guidelines mandating a universal charging port on many devices to reduce waste.
The language indicates that the government will begin debating what the measure should look like shortly. It also makes it clear the goal is to improve consumer choice, reduce consumer costs, and eliminate the massive waste created by corporate attempts to monopolize repair:
When it comes to broken appliances or devices, high repair fees and a lack of access to specific parts often mean Canadians are pushed to buy new products rather than repairing the ones they have. This is expensive for people and creates harmful waste.
Devices and appliances should be easy to repair, spare parts should be readily accessible, and companies should not be able to prevent repairs with complex programming or hard-to-obtain bespoke parts. By cutting down on the number of devices and appliances that are thrown out, we will be able to make life more affordable for Canadians and protect our environment.
While consumer protection has been an ugly mess on many fronts, watching the right to repair movement shift from nerdy niche to mainstream remains one of the more positive recent developments. Natasha Tusikov, an Associate Professor at York University, sums up the movement rather succinctly:
The right-to-repair movement can be understood as a consumer pushback against the commodification of knowledge and a battle over who should be allowed to control and use knowledge — to repair, tinker or innovate — and in whose interests.
Of course politicians claiming to support right to repair reforms and actually implementing them are two different things, and global corporations will spare no expense trying to ensure that, much like in the U.S., any competent federal requirements remain perpetually sidelined despite broad, bipartisan support.
Filed Under: canada, consumer protection, reform, right to repair
Comments on “Canada Eyes Right To Repair Protections In Latest Budget”
Commodification?
This gives a small lie to her use of the word. What large companies are doing is the opposite – they are withholding knowledge, parts, etc. for the express purpose of distorting the market values for such exchanges.
In layman’s terms, a commodity is something that can be expected to be available at most any time, and the value thereof can be predicated on that availability. For example, utilities are both commodities in that consumers can reasonably rely on a continuing supply of product, and traders (stock exchanges) can rely on customers demanding a share of what the utilities provide – that makes stock in a utility less volatile in most cases. Yes, there are blips and variances, but over the centuries…..
Until software and it’s accompanying copyright came along, we as a society had no issues depending on a variety of sources for repairs. Now…? We’re having this conversation on a multi-national basis, aren’t we? To me, that speaks volumes about such things as robber barons and the like.
$4.5 billion tax credits?
“a new five-year tax credit worth $4.5 billion for Canadian clean tech manufacturers”
That plan rewards “dirty” manufacturers for past and present sins. It must have been concocted by the dirty industries, themselves.
All new entries to the marketplace are forced to compete against entrenched, government subsidized manufacturers.
It it is more sensible, fairer, and more practical, to enact penalties for those who aren’t now, or fail to become clean. It will also encourage up and coming innovators.