Right To Repair Legislation Is Officially Being Considered In Canada

Canada is the newest frontier in the fight for the "right to repair" after an Ontario politician introduced a bill on Thursday that would ensure individuals and independent professionals can repair brand-name computers and phones cheaply and easily. From a report: Manufacturers make it incredibly difficult to repair our broken devices ourselves. Instead of taking a smashed phone to a local repair professional for an affordable fix, a complex matrix of trade secrets and government intervention often means consumers have to make a pricey trip to the Genius Bar or buy a new device entirely. This is bad for your wallet, but also bad for the planet.

Ontario Liberal Party MPP Michael Coteau ran into this issue head-first after his daughter dropped his Samsung smartphone. An official repair job from the manufacturer was more expensive than just getting a new phone from his carrier, he told me over the phone. "It's a shame," Coteau said, "because the Samsung S8 was very good for me. Everything was perfect. I would've kept using it. But now I've replaced it." On Thursday, Coteau introduced a private member's bill in provincial parliament that, if passed, would be the first "right to repair" law for electronic devices in North America. More than a dozen US states are currently considering similar bills, but nothing is on the books yet in the US or in Canada.

Let's try baby steps

[Snotnose]

Require an easily replaceable battery and go from there.

Re:

[david_thornley]

There should be no banned self repairs,

If you're my neighbor, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't try to make major repairs to your natural gas lines. Finding that it's functioning unsafely could cause me serious problems.

Re:Let's try baby steps

[DickBreath]

The Samsung Galaxy S5 had:
* removable back, which covered a . . .
* replaceable battery
* SIM card
* SD card
* A headphone jack (how cowardly compared to Apple's "courage")

BUT . . .it was also WATERPROOF. There are YouTube videos of people taking their S5 phone swimming, shooting video underwater with it, and coming up to the surface. A video of someone washing their S5 in a front loading washer with the screen locked to the on position so you could see the well lit up phone during the entire washing.

Wow. A phone that was waterproof, with headphone jack and replaceable battery. Somehow we no longer have the technical capability to build that combination of features in a phone.

Re:

[DickBreath]

You miss the point. I'm not saying it was perfect. I'm saying that today's phones should be waterproof, have removable batteries, gaskets protecting SIM and SD cards, and also have a headphone jack.

Re:Let's try baby steps

[thereddaikon]

English must not be your first language. He was mocking Apple's self described "courage" when they removed the headphone jack from the iPhone.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Require an easily replaceable battery and go from there.

And how do you define "easily replaceable"? Because even iPhones are easy to replace the battery with. Granted, not every drooling idiot with a butter knife as a screw driver can replace it, but if you're reasonably competent, you can do it. Given every shopping mall has at least one cellphone repair shop, it doesn't seem like a hard problem either.

And given the drooling idiot's tool of preference, well, it's probably a good thing they're not stabbing

Re:

[Rhipf]

It isn't hard to replace an Apple phone battery but it is a pain in the ... to get the damn thing out. Is there really any need to use such a strong adhesive to hold the battery in place? There is a back cover on the phone after all. Shouldn't that be enough to keep the battery in place?

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[gweihir]

Indeed. In fact, I consider a not easily replaced battery a severe design defect and will not buy, but many people do not really understand what they are getting into by not insisting.

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[david_thornley]

I have an iPhone 5S, bought shortly after it came out. It's about five and a half years old now. The battery works well. If I have to get the battery changed, and want Apple to do it, it's under $100. That's less than $20/year, far less than I pay for connectivity.

So, yes, I understood what I was getting into. I fully expected to have to get a new battery before this, and I was aware of the cost. My only misunderstanding was that I expected it to be more cost and hassle than it actually was.

Whew

[fat man's underwear]

My side-business repairing Commodore Plus 4s and Atari Falcons is safe!

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

I hope you aren't joking but I sense that you probably are. There is a growing retro scene out there and a number of folks who do board-level repair on C64, Amigas, STs, you name it... I personally don't think it's funny at all and I've used their services to do things like VRU or capacitor replacements many times.. I think it's awesome. I'm much excited about someone being able to repair fun & reusable "old" retro tech rather than the privacy invading garbage "intellectual property" of software megacor

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Bullshit. "Security fixes" aren't the only solution to security problems that crop up. Ring fencing, firewalling, byte patching, and many other mitigation strategies exist for security issues. One of which is simply "don't use the thing that's vulnerable." Another would be "replace the software with an open source alternative." Coward, you are very narrow minded if you think waiting like sheeple for "The Almighty Vendor" to come to your rescue for money, you might be sorely disappointed. They don't have the

Cue the lobbiests

[ilsaloving]

I imagine that there is now going to be a massive uproar because this kind of legislation is a very very scary thing to corporations who have gotten used to gouging their customers.

I don't have much faith it'll pass though, considering there is a conservative majority.

Re:

[green1]

going over well? I hope that was sarcasm. John Deere is probably the leading lobbyist against right to repair. So I doubt they'll find friends in the farm equipment industry. As for cars. Try to repair your own Tesla and get back to me. They'll fight you tooth and nail on that one.

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[dryeo]

It's a private bill by the opposition, doesn't matter what is in it, it isn't going anywhere in Ontario and everyone knows this.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times do people need to be told.?

Venezuela's PRIMARY problem is corruption, not socialism. It also happens that the USA's greatest problem is corruption, not capitalism.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[mark-t]

Pot, meet kettle.

Private Members Bills Never Pass

[Bradmont]

In Canadian politics, private members bills (bills presented by an individual representative rather than the party in power) almost never get passed. This one is doubly unlikely as it was proposed by an MPP of an opposition party, under the majority government of a right-wing, pro-business, quasi-populist premier.

So, move along, nothing to see here. It's not going to happen.

Re:

[mark-t]

While the Conservative party might be pro-business, as you say, it is still ultimately made up of individuals that may individually see the merit behind such legislation. Since the Conservative party typically permits its members to vote with their conscience, rather than according to any official line set by the party leaders, I would give this legislation better odds than 50-50 of going through.

Re:

[Bradmont]

I am inclined to argue with you, but really, I hope you're right, this would be a great step (even if I'm not in Ontario, it may spill over provincial lines). Still, the cynic in me is convinced that anything that makes sense is going to get screwed up by parliament...

Re:

[green1]

Members voting not along party lines? In Canada? Where have you been for the past couple of decades? That simply doesn't happen. Ever.

Sure, it used to, but not anymore. At this point, a majority government is really a government by one person. The Premier/Prime Minister. They tell their party how to vote on every issue, and that's what happens. Really we should simply eliminate all the individual members and their offices and save money. They aren't allowed to represent their constituents anyway.

Re:

[mark-t]

Members voting not along party lines? In Canada? Where have you been for the past couple of decades? That simply doesn't happen. Ever.

Sure it does. You simply haven't been paying attention if you think otherwise.

Not all parties advocate free votes, but the Conservatives in Ontario definitely do. Officially, their position reads as "The only whipped vote will be on the budget. Otherwise MPPs will always be allowed free votes."

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[green1]

is it a real policy, or a PR policy? have you looked at the voting record? how often do members exercise that right? I bet you'll find almost all votes are still right along party lines.

Re:

[mark-t]

It often can be the case that people who ally with a particular party tend towards the views of the party, so even a free vote can reflect party values.

However, as I said, the matter of right to repair is an issue that spans party lines. Anyone, regardless of political affiliation, has the potential to be adversely affected by corporate abuse in these regards, and there is a not insigificant chance that even many Conservative party members may have personally felt its sting, as this Liberal MPP did, so

Re:

[dryeo]

Came to say the same thing. I will add that if popular enough, similar bills might be introduced in other Provinces by the ruling party, or in the case of a minority government such as in BC, the two opposition parties could actually pass it.

Re:

[diodeus]

Bradmont, you are so correct that this shouldn't even be a news story.

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[Mashiki]

That's not really true. Private members bills pass often enough in legislatures across Canada, the reason you don't think they do is because most often those private members bills are party-centric policy actions that the aligned party doesn't want to tie their name to for whatever reason. Keep that after ~15 years of the Liberal Party of Ontario being anti-business, pro-business killing regulations, pro-tax the hell out of everybody, and screw you peasants you'll like the $0.18kWh electricity rates, and

LG V20 Phone for a super fixable

[foxalopex]

I went through a huge mess to find a properly working LG V20 and from everything I've read it was one of the last and fastest fixable phones. It features a replacable battery, sim and microSD slots. It was held together by about 22 regular micro screws and nothing was permo glued causing Ifixit to jokingly say V stands for "Very Repairable". I hope it lasts a long time compared to the epic glued together phones of today.

Re:

[dunkelfalke]

Glue is not a big deal. Affordable replacement parts are.

Maybe a different approach?

[jbmartin6]

How about instead of "right to repair" they just make restrictive covenants on consumer goods like this unenforceable? Let's get rid of the 'you are just licensing it' crap altogether.

Re:

[Hillie]

Amen.

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[green1]

So never buy anything with a computer chip in it. You have to go without any consumer electronics, and without any vehicle.

Sorry, not willing to go that far.

Right to Ownership is better

[Hillie]

This is the problem when governments start to get bigger than the "protect the citizens' rights" limit that they should be.

Government starts to introduce laws that cater to large corporations that say "We can prosecute you for repairing stuff yourself" that is a violation of trade.

Once I pay you over a thousand dollars for something I should be able to do with it as I wish. That is ownership.

All of this started with the DCMA and we all warned this would happen and of course we were all called paranoid.

Make

Re:

[green1]

Someone at some time decided that software and hardware would not be treated equally. That's where it all fell apart. And only because people deliberately chose not to understand what software is.

If I buy hardware, I'm allowed to do anything I want with it. It's mine. But if I buy something with software on it, it's NOT mine, and I can't do what I want with it. Suddenly companies can revoke all your rights just by implementing a feature in software instead of hardware. Of course almost everything these days

Nice try, but...

[jenningsthecat]

As a life-long Ontario resident I can tell you that with the Conservative party in power here and enjoying a solid majority, this bill has precisely zero chance of becoming law. Especially given the knuckle-dragging fuckwit we have as our provincial Premier. After all, Doug Ford is the guy who cut funding to student unions and justified it by saying "I think we all know what kind of crazy Marxist nonsense student unions get up to".