It’s a reality of life: stuff breaks. That’s something Anthony Rosborough, an assistant professor of law and computer science at ±«Óătv, certainly knew growing up in a family of boat builders and yacht designers.
“If you’re familiar with boats, they’re in a constant state of disrepair,” he says. “They’re a perpetual maintenance project, so, for me, repair was ingrained into my orientation to the world.”
That upbringing led to Rosborough’s familiarity with fixing, building, and repairing a wide range of things, from motorcycles to electronics. Repairs that he could do himself.
Rosborough, an intellectual property lawyer by trade, remembers learning about repair concepts in an academic setting.
I had a moral response that it wasn’t an acceptable use of the law and wanted to do something about it.
“Practicing intellectual property (IP) law is where I learned how it could be used to restrict people’s repair and maintenance activities,” he says. “I had a moral response that it wasn’t an acceptable use of the law and wanted to do something about it.”
Envisioning a healthy repair market
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The repair environment has changed notably over the years where repairs are increasingly complicated or not even possible for the consumer. Some manufacturers withhold part numbers, tools, or software, requiring customers to go directly to them rather than have a choice to do it themselves or visit a local repair shop. A simple repair can quickly turn into a costly, time-consuming ordeal.
Queue the Right to Repair movement, which advocates to empower customers, businesses, and independent repair providers with access to parts, tools, and software to repair products, devices, and technologies.
Rosborough and his co-chair Alissa Centivany at Western University brought together more than eighty researchers, industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and policy makers for a two-day last month at Dal.
Anthony Rosborough (left) andĚýAlissa Centivany (right) deliver opening remarks.Ěý
The Canadian context
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Consumers in some countries face greater challenges than others depending on where and how products are manufactured.
“When we think about the European Union (EU), it’s a collection of countries,” says Rosborough. “It exists primarily to engage in what they call market harmonization and implementing standards.”
He shares a few examples: If a company wants to sell a smartphone in the EU, it must have a user-replaceable battery. If a company wants to sell a laptop, it must provide service and support for a minimum of seven years. The market is large enough that manufacturers comply with these standards in their product design, production, and aftercare.
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If Canada tried to implement such standards, manufacturers could threaten to not sell in the country given its relatively small size (Canada’s population is just nine per cent of the EU’s). These threats can significantly influence political debates and discussion.Ěý
These power dynamics have informed Rosborough and his colleagues’ approach to improving repair in Canada.
“Our approach in Canada so far has been focused less on standards and top-down requirements on manufactures, and more so on giving independent customers and businesses the freedoms they need to fix things,” he says.
More than eighty researchers, industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and policy makers attended the Dal conference.
Movement progress and future
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An initiative that the Right to Repair movement is currently pursuing in Canada is building an index that would score products based on repairability. The goal is to have that information — the score — displayed at the time of purchase.
Rosborough says the proposal is in its early stages in Canada (with Quebec taking a leadership role provincially), but similar repairability indexes are already in place or in development in several jurisdictions, including the EU and France. , tabled in March of this year, is Canada’s current effort toward a similar repairability system.
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A federal repairability index in Canada would be like the new Front-of-Package (FOP) labels introduced by Health Canada in January 2026. These require labels on foods that are high in one or more of saturated fat, sugars, or sodium. The new regulation is intended to help consumers make quick and informed choices and support health professionals in nutrition education.
Applied across industries
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Many examples of the Right to Repair movement involve consumers purchasing personal items, but the same concept also applies to business purchases.
Rosborough serves as principal investigator of , an academic research project investigating the legal and technical barriers to independent repair and serving of medical devices in Canadian hospitals.
“It’s one thing for you and I purchasing a car or smartphone or washing machine, but it’s a whole other context for a health-care authority purchasing a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or other multi-million-dollar machine,” he says. “If a manufacturer designs its products in a way that prevents professional in-house technicians from doing repairs, not only does it increase costs for the health-care authority, but it delays treatment time for patients.”
With this understanding and context, a collaborative policy development process can take place.
Supporting the movement
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The ±«Óătv Schulich School of Law & Technology Institute, MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, and are among those actively working on these policy development processes.
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With progress being made in the automotive industry, with household appliances and medical technology, precedents are being set to continue expanding, introduce a durability index and move repair from an afterthought to a requirement in product development.