Bill C-511

3rd Session, 40th Parliament,

59 Elizabeth II, 2010

house of commons of canada

BILL C-511

An Act respecting the reporting of motor vehicle information and to amend the Motor Vehicle Safety Act (improving public safety)

Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

SHORT TITLE

1. This Act may be cited as the Proactive Enforcement and Defect Accountability Legislation (PEDAL) Act.

REGULATIONS

2. (1) Within 240 days after this Act comes into force, the Governor in Council shall make regulations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act to require every company that manufactures vehicles and equipment to report to the Minister, on a quarterly basis and as requested by the Minister, any information requested by the Minister as well as any information that has been received by the company from foreign and domestic sources that may assist in the identification of safety-related defects in vehicles and equipment in Canada and that relates to

(a) claims submitted to the company or to affiliates of the company in respect of deaths, serious injuries and property damage as a result of the malfunction of vehicles or equipment, including aggregate statistical data on property damage from alleged defects in a vehicle or equipment; or

(b) customer satisfaction campaigns, consumer advisories, recalls or other activities involving the repair or replacement of vehicles or equipment.

(2) Any regulations made under subsection (1) shall

(a) specify the manner and form of reporting the information referred to in that subsection;

(b) specify the manner in which the information is to be reviewed and utilized to assist in the identification of safety-related defects in vehicles and equipment in Canada, including the systems and processes to be established to review and utilize the information; and

(c) provide that any information received by the Minister under those regulations is to be posted on the departmental website within 30 days after it is received.

(3) No regulations made under subsection (1) shall impose requirements that are unduly burdensome to a company that manufactures vehicles or equipment, taking into account the cost to the company of complying with the requirements and the Minister's capacity to use the information referred to in that subsection in a meaningful manner to assist in the identification of safety-related defects in vehicles and equipment in Canada.

(4) Any regulations made under subsection (1) shall include procedures for their periodic review and updating.

(5) In this section, “company”, “equipment” and “vehicle” have the meanings assigned to those terms by section 2 of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act.

MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY ACT

3. Section 2 of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act is amended by adding the following in alphabetical order:

4. (1) Subsection 5(1) of the Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (a):

(2) Subparagraph 5(1)(g)(ii) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(ii) facilitating the identification and anal- ysis of safety-related defects referred to in subsection 10(1); and

5. (1) The heading before section 10 of the Act is replaced by the following:

NOTICE OF SAFETY-RELATED DEFECTS

(2) The portion of subsection 10(1) of the Act before paragraph (a) is replaced by the following:

10. (1) A company that manufactures, sells or imports any vehicle or equipment of a class for which standards are prescribed shall, on becoming aware of a safety-related defect, cause notice of the defect to be given in the prescribed manner to

(3) Subsection 10(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) A company is not required to cause notice to be given of a safety-related defect of which notice has already been given under this section by another company that manufactured, sold or imported the vehicle or equipment.

(4) Paragraph 10(3)(a) of the English version of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) the Minister may order the company to give notice of the safety-related defect by publication in the prescribed form for a period of five consecutive days in two major daily newspapers in each of the following six regions, namely, the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairie provinces, British Columbia and the Territories, or by dissemination in an alternative medium for such period as the Minister determines; or

(5) Subsection 10(4) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(4) A notice required to be given under subsections (1) and (3) shall contain, in the form and to the extent prescribed, a description of the safety-related defect, an evaluation of the safety risk arising from it and directions for correcting it.

(6) Subsection 10(6) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(6) Every company that causes notice to be given under subsection (1) shall submit a report containing prescribed information respecting the safety-related defect and its correction to the Minister in the prescribed form within the prescribed period and quarterly thereafter.

6. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 10:

7. Subsection 15(3) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(3) An inspector may require any person to produce for examination any books, records, reports, test data, shipping bills, bills of lading or other documents or electronically stored data that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contain any information relevant to the enforcement of this Act or to the identification or analysis of a safety-related defect referred to in subsection 10(1), and may make copies of or take extracts from any of them.