Steven Chase and Greg Keenan
Ottawa and Toronto — Globe and Mail Update
Politicians get their first chance to question the regulator and what some call its ‘cozy' relationship with the auto maker
Senior Transport Canada bureaucrats found themselves on the hot seat today on Parliament Hill, forced to defend their actions in the massive recall of Toyotas over acceleration problems.
As a storm of negative publicity and lawsuits batters the auto maker, the Commons committee hearings Thursday and next Tuesday gives Canadian politicians their first chance to grill Transport Canada and Toyota Canada Inc. officials about the recalls and the issue of sudden acceleration.
Bloc MP Mario Laframboise told the committee he's worried Canada is failing to protect consumers as quickly as the U.S.
“What really bothers me ... is we look like we're lagging behind the U.S,” Mr. Laframboise said.
NDP MP Brian Masse raised concerns about how cozy a relationship Transport Canada regulators have with Toyota, asking questions about why it released a statement last fall saying it “applauds” the auto maker's efforts to protect Canadians.
The MP suggested this was improper for Transport Canada to shower such accolades on a auto maker it's supposed to be regulating.
That's a “very significant statement from supposedly the police for consumers and public safety,” Mr. Masse said.
MPs questioned whether the federal government
has enough defect investigators to do the job.
“You have 10 per 1,200 complaints,” Liberal MP Bonnie Crombie asked of Transport officials. “Is that enough?
Transport officials said they were adequately funded.
“We feel we are fulfilling our obligations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act,” Gerard MacDonald, Associate Assistant deputy minister, responsible for Safety & Security at Transport Canada.
Transport Canada said it has seen a big jump in consumer complaints about Toyotas since the recall.
But they said not all these beefs may be caused by car problems.
“Some of these cases may be driver error,” Trevor Lehouillier, head of Defect Investigations at Transport Canada.
Toyota has been mired in a crisis since January, when it announced a recall and a halt in sales of its most popular North American cars to fix sticky gas pedals.
Toyota Canada president Yoichi Tomihara and managing director Stephen Beatty are scheduled to testify next Tuesday. MPs have however demanded the auto maker also make available Toyota's North American CEO, Yoshi Inaba but the car company has so far declined to do so.
The recalls and the maelstrom of negative publicity, including investigations by the U.S. Congress and apologies by Toyota chief executive officer Akio Toyoda, have dented its once-sterling reputation for quality. That reputation helped vault Toyota into global auto sales leadership.
Mr. Toyoda testified at one Congressional hearing last month, as did Mr. Inaba.
George Iny, president of the Automobile Protection Agency, a Canadian consumer group, has said he wants the committee to seek evidence from “a defect investigations person with Transport Canada (not a professional manager) to talk about – in an non-political manner – potential improvements to increasing their capability to handle the crisis situations that occur every three to four years”.
The Globe and Mail
