US President Joe Biden was surprised last Monday that it was nearly impossible for the average North American consumer to fix his old phone or even his… tractor himself. He demands that the federal agency responsible for this sort of thing, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), regulate manufacturers more strictly to better guarantee what he called the “right to repair”.
If there is one thing Americans care about, it is their individual rights. And if there is one that has been neglected in recent years, it is that allowing them to repair themselves the mechanical or electronic devices that they buy at the top price. “It sounds a little strange to say it that way, but we call it the right to repair, and it is literally that,” said Joe Biden.
This right has been flouted for years by manufacturers who limit, more and more often and without valid reason, access to the internal components of their products. “If you have a smartphone or a tractor, if it breaks, you have to go to the seller and pay the price demanded by the seller,” added the American president. “If you try to do it yourself, you void the warranty. »
A right that is expensive
A little more and you would swear that Joe Biden himself occupies part of his free time trying to change the battery of his iPhone or replace the suspension of his John Deere…
It must be said that the audacity of the manufacturers goes a long way. They often affix a small sticker in a strategic place on the case that will certainly be torn if the owner decides to open the device to see what is under the hood. Obviously, as soon as this sticker is altered, the manufacturer’s warranty is automatically void.
All of this ends up costing consumers dearly. Very expensive. A New York University study quoted by the American president during his speech establishes the additional costs caused by this lack of “repairability” at 5,000 US dollars that the average American household must assume each year. Discouraged from repairing his appliances himself, he either pays more to have them repaired by technicians certified by the manufacturer, or he has to replace them altogether.
Of course, in addition to the purely financial cost caused by this phenomenon, there is also an environmental cost: electronic waste piles up more quickly when you have to change your dishwasher, television or personal computer every five years…
The UN has just published a study on electronic waste at the end of January. The organization points out that this is the type of waste that is experiencing the strongest growth in the world today. If you think that the climate fight is only about greenhouse gas emissions, you are wrong. This waste alters ecosystems and also represents a major threat to the health of the planet.
Quebec on the lookout
The right to repair is in a way the antithesis of planned obsolescence, which we hear more about in Quebec, even if the two concepts are not quite the same thing. After all, a product designed to break down quickly might still be repairable.
In our country, too, politicians are annoyed by this problem. They too hope that measures to fight against the accumulation of electronic waste will be put in place… one day. A bill to this effect was presented in the spring of 2019 to the National Assembly by the independent deputy Guy Ouellette. Elected officials from all provincial parties voted in April 2021 to adopt the “principle” of this bill (number 197).
The ball is now in the court of Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who is responsible for the Consumer Protection Act. It is this law that will probably be amended to include any provisions that should discourage the development by large manufacturers of products and devices that break too easily or that very soon show themselves incapable of fulfilling the function for which they were designed.
The minister’s office says it is working with the Consumer Protection Office to move this bill forward, but we don’t know when it will come to fruition. It is also unclear what measures will be put in place. Quebec represents a tiny pool of consumers in the eyes of large globalized manufacturers, who will probably prefer to abandon this market rather than comply with its requirements.
However, Quebec could act quickly by taking inspiration from two measures implemented elsewhere in the world. First, it could recover the “repairability index” imposed in France on manufacturers of computer products. This index takes the form of a rating, out of ten, of the ease with which one can repair the device oneself. Slight downside: it is the manufacturers themselves who determine this rating for their own products.
Next, the province could require in-province manufacturers to provide free online (and in French) detailed repair guides for their current and past products. This is also the first thing the FTC did in the United States after Joe Biden’s foot call.
Consulting a guide to repairing your dishwasher yourself if it refuses to close properly would save many consumers from spending hundreds of dollars unnecessarily. It remains to be seen how many will be ready to start repairing tractors…