Québec legislature introduces Bill 29, An Act to protect consumers from planned obsolescence and to promote the durability, repairability and maintenance of goods (22 day reddit repost)

The bill introduces a legal warranty of good working order for certain new goods that are commonly used. As regards the warranty of good working order for used automobiles, the bill updates the classes of such automobiles.

The bill enhances the legal warranty of availability of replacement parts and repair services for goods of a nature that requires maintenance work by specifying that the availability of the information necessary to maintain or repair the goods must also be guaranteed. Merchants or manufacturers who are bound by the warranty of availability must make the parts, repair services and information necessary to maintain or repair the goods available at a reasonable price. The bill also provides that it must be possible to install the replacement parts using commonly available tools, without causing irreversible damage to the goods. In addition, consumers have the right, under certain circumstances, to request the repair of goods requiring it.

Under the bill, merchants must provide information on legal warranties of good working order before entering into a contract that includes an additional warranty. Consumers may resolve such a contract, at their discretion, within 10 days after the contract is entered into. The bill proposes to prohibit the business of trading in goods for which obsolescence is planned and to prohibit the use of techniques that make it more difficult for consumers to maintain or repair goods. In addition, automobile manufacturers must provide the owner or long-term lessee of a vehicle, or the repairer of the vehicle, with free access to the vehicle’s data.

With respect to long-term contracts of lease of automobiles, the bill provides that merchants must propose an inspection free of charge of the automobile before the end of the consumer’s lease and specifies the cases in which the merchant may not claim charges for the abnormal wear of goods.

The bill gives the Government the regulatory power to determine technical or manufacturing standards for goods, including standards for interoperability between goods and chargers.

The bill also allows a court to declare, on an application by the consumer, that an automobile is a “seriously defective vehicle”, in particular if the defects affecting it render it unfit for the purposes for which it was intended and several attempts have been made to repair it.