Repairing a TV in 2023 is a feat, especially given the shortage of parts. A bill introduced by Quebec Liberals seeks to solve the problem by imposing heavy penalties on manufacturers.
“It’s becoming less and less repairable these days,” says Serge Giguère, 65, at his Réal Giguère TV store on Rue Marie-Anne in Montreal.
The Giguères have been repair shops from father to son since 1950 and are based in the same place. The shop is overflowing with machines from 1940 to the present day.
Serge runs business with his brother Alain, 63 years old.
“If we go away, there won’t be any more. We are among the last repairers,” says the youngest.
For now, the two sixties are still around, and their problem with repairing TVs is the lack of parts.
“I have a two-year-old Toshiba there and I need a motherboard, but it’s no longer available,” Serge gives as an example.
He outlives about one in four televisions that bring him customers.
“If I manage to fix it, 80% of the time it’s a backlight issue,” he says.
Otherwise, it manages to find some parts on sites like eBay, but it’s still pretty random.
It’s possible to find parts for a 1945 car, Alain exclaims, “but you don’t have parts for a 2020 TV. It’s ridiculous, it’s overconsumption. »
“I’ve been saying it for a long time: companies that sell TVs should keep the parts for at least 5-10 years after the sale,” he says.
The experienced hacker recalls the good Montreal years, when every brand had its parts warehouse on the edge of the Décarie freeway.
“Anything can be repaired, but televisions are so cheap these days that you’re lucky if they last three years,” the man points out with authority.
laws elsewhere in the world
That’s why he prefers to leave the televisions to his brother Serge and takes care of other devices such as central vacuum cleaners or extractor hoods.
Of course, the phenomenon that the Giguère brothers experienced does not only apply to televisions and has a name: planned obsolescence.
France was one of the first countries in the world to outlaw the practice in 2015 with a law that includes fines of 300,000 euros (over C$430,000) and up to 5% of the average annual turnover of companies that lend themselves to it.
Screenshot, TVA Nouvelles
Marwah Rizqy
Liberal MP
Legislative momentum surrounding the “right to repair” has also recently gained traction in the United States, which proponents argue reduces both consumer costs and unnecessary waste.
The state of New York, for example, has just passed the “Digital Fair Repair Act”, which obliges manufacturers in particular to make spare parts available to consumers and independent repairers.
In Quebec, independent MP Guy Ouellette tabled the first such bill in 2019.
The CAQ government has never pursued the project, so much so that Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy has just tabled a new one.
“We have to go to the parade. We are stupid, we should have done it a long time ago, ”starts the Saint-Laurent representative-elect in an interview with the Journal.
She recalls that Apple was the first company to be arrested for planned obsolescence in 2015.
Ms. Rizqy wants to attack manufacturers by levying fines of $3 million, or 5% of their profits.
Proposed repairability rating
His bill also promises to introduce a repairability rating for electronic devices sold in Quebec, as is the case in France. It is then easier for the consumer to make an informed choice at the time of purchase.
“Spare parts|…]must be available at reasonable prices and on reasonable terms,” the bill goes on to say.
The minister doesn’t seem to be in a hurry
The Caquiste government has not commented on what will happen next.
In the office of Consumer Protection Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, it is stated that “planned obsolescence is a complex issue where it is important to take action” without giving further details.
Do you have any information about this story that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a scoop that might be of interest to our readers?