Provinces urged to help solve unfixed safety recalls

Provincial governments across Canada are missing an opportunity to improve auto safety by not checking for unfixed or open safety recalls when owners register their vehicles, experts say.

While most provinces require a safety or mechanical inspection before a vehicle changes hands, none check for outstanding safety recalls or insist that they be fixed. CBC News checked 200 cars for sale across Canada and found nearly one in six had open safety recalls.

"If [the province is] registering the vehicle and you're undergoing a safety inspection, they also should be a filter," said George Iny of the Automobile Protection Agency, who noted provinces like Ontario block a vehicle's registration if there are unpaid parking tickets on it.

"We figured out ways to collect parking fines, so getting a vehicle recall shouldn't be more complicated," said Iny.

The number of recalls keeps mounting. Five million cars in Canada were recalled in 2015 alone involving 24 manufacturers of both domestic and imported vehicles. The pressure is on to find a way to increase the rate of repairs.

Right now, carmakers are legally obligated to notify owners and track recall fixes. They agree the provinces need to get involved.

David Adams of the Global Automakers of Canada said notifying owners about open recalls when they go to register their vehicle may help increase repair rates.

60-day 'grace period'

"Maybe you don't go as far as denying the registration, but you would say that you need to get this fixed, you have a 60-day grace period," said Adams.

The Canadian Automobile Manufacturers' Association has also advocated a provincial licence-renewal recall check, spokesman Mark Nantais wrote in an email to CBC News. "Taking action on recalls is a priority safety issue for industry, government and consumers — all have a role in the solution."

The umbrella group representing provincial vehicle registries, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA), has been working for more than a year to address the problem, but according to the federal auditor general's report released Nov. 29, the process is stalled.

The council was considering converting a Transport Canada proposal to increase recall rates into a code of practice and action plan, but "work had not begun at the time of this audit," wrote Auditor General Michael Ferguson in his fall 2016 report.

The CCMTA confirmed no work has begun on its action plan.

Recall fix rates public in U.S. but not in Canada

Correction rates for safety recalls are available online in the United States but not in Canada. Transport Canada receives the information on a quarterly basis from manufacturers but keeps it under wraps.

In the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) posts recall fix rates online. NHTSA even produced an in-depth look at the Takata airbag recall that affected 40 million vehicles across North America. The survey reveals Honda has the highest completion rate, at 50 per cent or 8,289,301 air bags repaired, and GM had the lowest rate with 0.2 per cent or 671 repairs.

CBC News repeatedly asked Transport Canada to share correction rates by recall or by manufacturer, but the department said these reports contain third-party confidential information that must be requested in accordance with the Access to Information Act, a process that can take weeks or months, with no guarantee the information will be released.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau said he was open to considering making the information available.

"I'd like to talk to my department about it, because it is a new suggestion that you're making and I think it's one that's worth looking at, but I can't give you a definite answer at this point," Garneau in an interview with CBC News last week.

When asked if recall repair rates should be made public, Nantais, with the Canadian Automobile Manufacturers' Association, said he does not see the benefit in publicly disclosing this information.

The recall is in the mail

The primary way manufacturers are notifying owners about recalls is through the mail, but that can be tricky, especially when it comes to finding the owner of an older car — something the auditor general's report noted. People also move, said Adams, of the Global Automakers of Canada, adding the lack of consistency in the provincial systems hinders efforts to locate owners.

"Our members have been very proactive — some would say aggressive — for a number of years reaching out to governments and even provincially run insurance companies," said Nantais, who wants to find even more effective ways to contact owners to improve the recall response rate.

An Ottawa-based car dealer says instead of tracking down the owners, automakers should use technology that would allow the car to flash a recall message on the dash.

"There are a lot of cars that come hardwired with built-in internet — there's no excuse why these vehicles couldn't automatically tell you if there is a safety recall issue on your car," said Kevin MacDonald of Carling Motors. "There would be a way to build that software into cars going forward."

Nantais said his members are going online to get the word out about recalls.

"Social media is now becoming one of the better tools, as well, to inform people that there are open recalls," Nantais said. "Websites — corporate websites for instance — they have that ability. You can go in there, plug in your VIN, for instance, and up comes the recall — or not."