(Quebec) Four years after the conclusion of the session work that led to the drafting of a law to combat planned obsolescence, law students, now attorneys, are pleased to see that the Legault administration has embraced this idea by presenting its bill.
Posted at 1:15am. Updated at 6:00 a.m.
“We really made a difference, our work was relevant and it’s very rewarding and encouraging to see that.” It mobilizes everyone and we saw that right from the start of the project,” says Jade Racine.
PHOTO ANNE GAUTHIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
In particular, planned obsolescence leads to a voluntary shortening of the lifespan of items by manufacturers.
She is one of the alumni who took part in this “colossal” work while studying law at Université de Sherbrooke.
“We absolutely didn’t expect it to be this big when we started it in the classroom,” adds another former student, Guillaume Bourbeau, with a laugh.
In 2019, her lecturer Jonathan Mayer challenged his cohort of 51 students to draft a bill to fight against planned obsolescence, i.e. the voluntary shortening of the lifespan of objects by manufacturers, and the impossibility or great difficulty of repairing them.
PHOTO MARTIN BLACHE, UNIVERSITY OF SHERBROOKE
Jonathan Mayer, Associate Professor at the University of Sherbrooke Law School
The challenge was met and Bill 197 on Planned Obsolescence was introduced to the National Assembly by independent MP Guy Ouellette in April 2019. The idea was taken up later in the current legislature by Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy.
inspiration
But as icing on the cake, Attorney General Simon Jolin-Barrette presented his own version of the bill on June 1, with a firm intention of passing it, emphasizing the students’ “serious work”.
In recent years, the topic of planned obsolescence and the durability of goods has repeatedly come into focus. Many people have wondered what is the best way to handle this matter.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, Minister for Justice
“Several have come forward with suggestions and certainly good food for thought,” Minister Jolin-Barrette said. I am thinking in particular of the students at the University of Sherbrooke who contributed to the drafting of a first-ever Planned Obsolescence Bill presented here in the National Assembly. »
The minister wants to put a stop to manufacturers who are tricked into offering inferior products, to ensure consumers are forced to renew them ahead of time, by reversing the burden currently on buyers with the legal guarantee principle.
Mr. Mayer welcomes this “innovative pedagogical approach” and is very pleased that “the students can also have an impact other than purely academic”. He says he’s very proud that their initiative “helped change a little bit of consumer protection law in Quebec.”
The right tools
Jade Racine and Guillaume Bourbeau also point out that they are proud that the “path” they took in drafting their bill was the right one: the high school seniors – without the help of Mr Mayer, who claims not to have touched the substance of the bill – proposed amending the consumer protection law instead of creating a new law and insisted on the right to repair.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Guillaume Bourbeau, one of the former students involved in the work that inspired the government
The path we chose was the right one: the Consumer Protection Act is already a great tool that exists. It’s about […] Adopting articles that protect the consumer, going beyond that and bringing in the idea of the right to repair.
Guillaume Bourbeau, one of the former students involved in the work that inspired the government
Jade Racine adds. “We had even met repair shops, people from the mobile phone sector. They explained to us that they could not even open certain mobile phones. Sometimes the device breaks as soon as you open it, making it simply impossible to repair. Or sometimes the tools don’t exist, you can’t buy them. It was really problematic,” she says.
The Legault government bill provides that “anyone wishing to repair an object may do so with standard, accessible tools and without an engineering course”. The students also realized in their research that “legislating the right to repair is easier than punishing planned obsolescence, which is difficult to prove,” Ms. Racine says.
A different vision of the law
This adventure also allowed attorneys Bourbeau and Racine to better understand “the social source” of the laws. “It gave me a new perspective. When I look at an article of law, I tell myself that it arises from an idea, a need in our society to protect people. Because of this project, I have a completely different perspective on understanding where the laws come from and on the political aspect,” emphasizes Ms. Racine, who now works in commercial law.
This comment makes Mr. Mayer, a law graduate with a master’s degree in ethics and philosophy, smile.
My baccalaureate courses seem to be the least relevant to the students’ work […]but no, it’s probably a little more important than they imagined.
Jonathan Mayer, Associate Professor at the University of Sherbrooke Law School
And Herr Mayer has no intention of stopping. A cohort of students is currently working on artificial intelligence and its diverse challenges. “The legal implications are immense. If we are able to produce videos where we can no longer distinguish reality from fake, how can we allow video evidence in court? And if a professional like a civil engineer gets help from AI in his calculations and there is a problem, who is responsible for it? Him or the AI designer? “There will be a variety of legal issues,” he drops. We wish you good luck.