Bill 29 amends Québec’s Consumer Protection Act to require a legal warranty of good working order for a defined list of new goods, to compel manufacturers and merchants to make replacement parts, repair services and repair information (including diagnostic software) available, and to prohibit techniques and commercial practices that intentionally shorten product life. It adds specific procedural rights for consumers—such as the right to request repairs, a clear process where merchants must respond within 10 days, and protections for long-term vehicle lessees including a free pre-end-of-lease inspection.
The bill also creates new enforcement tools: monetary administrative penalties, higher criminal fine ranges for many contraventions, and regulatory authority for the government to set technical standards (including interoperability rules and warranty durations). It aims to shift responsibility onto producers and sellers to support maintenance, repairability and clearer disclosure around warranties and the availability of parts and information.
At a Glance
What It Does
Establishes an automatic legal warranty of good working order for a specified list of new goods and requires parts, repair services and repair information (including diagnostic software) to be available for a reasonable time, at reasonable prices, and installable with common tools. It forbids the trade in goods with planned obsolescence and bans techniques that impede repair; automobile manufacturers must give free access to vehicle diagnostic data.
Who It Affects
Manufacturers and merchants of household appliances, consumer electronics and other goods listed by the Act (and any goods later added by regulation); automobile makers and long-term lessors; independent repairers and recyclers; and consumers who buy or lease covered goods.
Why It Matters
This is an explicit statutory right-to-repair and anti-obsolescence framework tied to disclosure and enforcement: regulators will set durations and technical standards, courts gain a formal route to declare ‘seriously defective’ vehicles, and the government adds administrative penalties to speed compliance—measures that will alter product design, after-sales practices and repair markets.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates a statutory warranty of "good working order" for a list of new goods (ranges, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, computers, cell phones, TVs, heat pumps, etc.), with the exact duration to be fixed by regulation. That warranty expressly covers parts and labour; it takes effect on delivery and excludes normal maintenance, abuse by the consumer, and certain accessories defined by regulation.
Manufacturers must publish specified warranty information and merchants must display the warranty duration prominently near the advertised price or retail value.
Separately, the bill requires merchants and manufacturers to ensure replacement parts, repair services and the information necessary to maintain or repair goods are available for a "reasonable time" after sale. The obligation explicitly extends to diagnostic software and updates where applicable; replacement parts must be installable with commonly available tools without causing irreversible damage.
A merchant can warn a consumer before sale that it will not supply parts or information, but regulations may identify goods for which that release is not permitted. The law also sets an affordability standard: prices for parts, services or information must not discourage consumer access, with regulators able to identify presumptively discouraging prices.For automobiles the bill: (1) requires manufacturers to provide owners, long-term lessees or their repairers with free access to vehicle data for diagnostics, maintenance and repair, and (2) creates a judicial process to have a vehicle declared a "seriously defective vehicle" where specified repair-attempt thresholds and time/kilometre limits are met and the defects substantially impair the vehicle.
Long-term leases gain additional protections: merchants must offer a free inspection well before lease-end and must follow a tight disclosure-and-repair window before charging for abnormal wear; contracts may not require original parts or manufacturer-performed maintenance as a basis for damage charges in most cases.On enforcement, the bill introduces a monetary administrative penalty regime (government to define objectively observable noncompliance and set amounts up to statutorily capped maxima), raises criminal fine ranges for many contraventions, doubles fines for repeat offences, and allows retainers/security to be used to pay administrative penalties. The government also receives explicit regulatory powers to set technical and interoperability standards, to determine warranty durations and to prescribe which parts/information must remain available and for how long.
Collected penalties are ring-fenced for consumer-oriented projects through the Justice Ministry.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act lists covered goods (e.g.
ranges, refrigerators, washers/dryers, TVs, laptops, cell phones, heat pumps) that automatically carry a statutory warranty of good working order; regulators will set the warranty duration.
Manufacturers must provide parts, repair services and repair information (including diagnostic software and updates) for a ‘‘reasonable time’’ and at prices that do not discourage access; replacement parts must be installable with commonly available tools without causing irreversible damage.
If a merchant or manufacturer fails to respond to a consumer’s written repair request within 10 days, the consumer may obtain replacement or a refund; if a merchant responds but misses the agreed repair time, the consumer may choose a refund or third-party repair reimbursement.
Automobile owners or long-term lessees (or their mandatary) must be given free access to vehicle data for diagnostics/repair; courts can declare a vehicle “seriously defective” after defined thresholds (e.g.
three unsuccessful attempts for the same defect, or twelve for unrelated defects) within three years and 60,000 km.
The bill creates monetary administrative penalties (government to set objectively observable failures; statutory ceilings of $1,750 for a natural person and $3,500 for others per day of continuing noncompliance) and substantially raises criminal fine ranges for many Consumer Protection Act violations.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Statutory warranty for specified new goods — scope, display and disclosure
These provisions list the initial categories of new goods that carry an automatic warranty of good working order and declare that the warranty covers parts and labour and begins at delivery. The law carves out normal maintenance, consumer abuse and certain accessories as exclusions, and it obliges manufacturers to disclose regulated warranty information and merchants to display warranty duration next to the advertised price or retail value. Practically, retailers must incorporate warranty durations into point-of-sale pricing and post-sale communications, and regulators will define which additional goods and accessories are included or excluded.
Obligation to keep parts, repair services and repair information available (including software)
This cluster requires manufacturers and merchants to make replacement parts, repair services and repair information — explicitly including diagnostic software and updates — available for a reasonable post-sale period. It adds two operational constraints: parts must be installable with common tools and not cause irreversible damage, and prices must not be set so as to discourage access. The section also creates a consumer-facing repair remedy: if parts/info are unavailable and the seller ignores a repair request (or misses repair timing), consumers can demand replacement or refund or have a third party repair and be reimbursed, subject to return of the goods.
Court route to declare a vehicle a 'seriously defective vehicle'
Section 53.1 sets objective triggers for a court declaration: repeated unsuccessful warranty repair attempts (three for same defect, one or two attempts but the vehicle held >30 days, or twelve attempts for unrelated defects), appearance within three years and under 60,000 km, and a showing that defects render the vehicle unfit or substantially diminish its usefulness. The declaration treats latent defects as falling within the standard and gives consumers a legal label that affects resale and disclosure obligations elsewhere in the statute.
Lease protections — pre-return inspections and limits on charging for aftermarket parts
The bill bars common lease clauses that let merchants charge for non-original parts or for maintenance not performed by the manufacturer unless the contract specifically states otherwise. It also requires merchants to offer a free inspection at least 90 days before lease-end (to take place 30–60 days before lease termination if accepted), produce a report identifying abnormal wear, and give lessees a 10-day window to repair or authorize third-party repair before charging. Merchants who fail to provide required inspection reports or notices lose the right to charge for the allegedly abnormal wear.
Anti-repair prohibitions and new enforcement tools (monetary administrative penalties)
The statute prohibits techniques that make maintenance or repair more difficult and outlaws the business of trading in goods with planned obsolescence (with manufacturers deemed to be conducting that business). To enforce these duties the Act authorizes monetary administrative penalties: the government will specify objectively observable compliance failures that can trigger a notice of claim, set procedures and scales (including daily continuation for ongoing breaches), and cap individual penalty amounts (statutory ceilings guide regulators). At the same time, criminal fine ranges across many Consumer Protection Act provisions are increased and repeat-offence multipliers apply, creating parallel administrative and penal levers.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Consumers of covered goods — gain a statutory parts-and-labour warranty, clearer pre-sale disclosure on warranty scope and duration, defined repair remedies (replacement/refund or third-party reimbursement) and protections against unfair end-of-lease charges.
- Independent repair shops and third-party technicians — stand to receive required parts, diagnostic information and vehicle data access that previously could be withheld, expanding their addressable repairs and reducing reliance on manufacturer networks.
- Used-car buyers and lessees — benefit from the 'seriously defective vehicle' mechanism and new disclosure requirements that increase transparency about vehicles with repeated defects and limit unfair wear charges at lease end.
- Consumer and environmental advocates — the ban on planned obsolescence and obligations to make repair information available advance durability and circular-economy goals, enabling longer product lives and repair markets.
Who Bears the Cost
- Manufacturers (electronics, appliances and automobile makers) — must provide parts, services, repair information and free vehicle data access, revise product and software designs for reparability and interoperability, and absorb warranty and transport/repair costs.
- Merchants and retailers — must display warranty durations conspicuously, supply regulated disclosures pre-contract, offer free lease-end inspections and manage 10-day repair windows; they also face higher fines and potential administrative penalties.
- Regulators and courts — responsible for writing numerous technical regulations (warranty durations, parts/information lists, price-presumption rules, interoperability standards) and for administering/ adjudicating the new monetary penalty regime.
- Large-brand service networks and original equipment manufacturers — may lose exclusive control over after-sales markets and incur costs adapting supply chains, service manuals, secure diagnostic access and potential redesign to permit common-tool installation.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward: the law pushes for consumer repairability and longer product life by forcing disclosure, parts availability and data access, but doing so risks undermining manufacturers’ claims about intellectual property, safety and cybersecurity and may shift costs onto producers and retailers—raising prices or reducing innovation incentives—while regulators must calibrate rules and penalties tightly to make compliance both meaningful and administrable.
Key implementation choices are pushed to regulation: warranty durations, which additional goods are covered, the specific replacement parts and repair information that cannot be disclaimed, what prices "discourage" access, and the objectively observable noncompliance triggers for administrative penalties. Those delegated details will determine whether the regime meaningfully widens repair access or leaves room for manufacturers to limit disclosures on safety, intellectual property or cyber-security grounds.
The bill’s text gives firms a narrow route to avoid the parts obligation by providing pre-contract written notice they won’t supply parts or information, which risks becoming a routine compliance work-around unless the regulation tightly circumscribes that release for certain goods.
Practical enforcement will also be tricky. Monetary administrative penalties are capped at relatively modest levels ($1,750/$3,500) per stated maxima, which may be small relative to the margin on some products and thus insufficient as deterrence unless regulators set per-day scaling or repeat-offence multipliers carefully; conversely, the substantially increased criminal fine ranges create high-stakes litigation exposure for firms but are resource-intensive for prosecutors.
For automobiles, mandatory free access to vehicle data raises issues around telematics security, consumer privacy and proprietary diagnostic protocols — regulators will need to reconcile free access with cybersecurity obligations and with manufacturers’ claims of intellectual property over software tools.
Finally, the bill phases provisions in over staggered timeframes and exempts existing lease contracts for several months; that staging reduces immediate disruption but creates a transition window where market players face asymmetric obligations. Businesses and regulators will need clear guidance during the phase-in to avoid compliance gaps, inconsistent marketplace behavior and creditor or leasing disputes arising from mixed contractual regimes.
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