In Frontier, Sask., a town of fewer than 400 people, the Honey Bee Manufacturing plant looms large at 120,000 square feet.
The business, which makes headers and swathers, has grown from a two-man family operation to a manufacturer that employs roughly 200 people and ships agricultural attachments all over the world.
But Honey Bee is now monitoring a new challenge — one more commonly associated with Silicon Valley.
Just as some devices don’t work with other companies’ charging cables, some farm equipment now comes with tech that prevents farmers from using other brands’ attachments — and companies like Honey Bee are concerned the practice is growing.
“It’s becoming more and more prevalent every day and every year,” said Jamie Pegg, Honey Bee general manager.
Farm equipment has become much more digitized, prompting some companies to use digital locks. They say this protects their copyrighted technology and prevents hacking, said John Schmeiser, president of the North American Equipment Dealers’ Association.
Jamie Pegg is general manager at Honey Bee Manufacturing. (Paula Duhatschek/CBC)
But that can become a problem, he said, when digital locks are also used to stop one brand’s products from working with another’s.
Canadians can’t currently bypass those locks without potentially violating the Copyright Act — and that can carry a serious penalty.
But change could be on the horizon.
A bill that was passed in Parliament last year and is working its way through the Senate wouldalter the Copyright Act, making it legal to circumvent digital locks in the interest of interoperability.
Both grain farmers and consumer advocates are watching it closely. Many see the interoperability issue as an offshoot of the right-to-repair debate, where companies use proprietary technology to stop customers from fixing their stuff on their own.
Though companies say they’re for protecting copyright, critics say digital locks are used to stamp out competition — and to keep rivals from developing new products that work with existing ones.
“Can you fix the thing that you own? Can you buy products that interoperate with the thing that you own? These are fundamental freedoms,” said Kyle Wiens, a U.S.-based right-to-repair advocate and founder of the iFixit online repair guide.
iPhones and harvesting combines
Chris Allam is operations manager at the Allam Farms Partnership in Ardrossan, Alta. (Peter Evans/CBC)
“Interoperability” essentially means the ability of one product or system to work with another one.
Think of how Google Chrome works on an Apple device, despite being made by different companies.
Apple has also been criticized over the issue. For years, its phones didn’t work with the USB-C connector that’s become standard for many other devices. That changed following new European Union rules, though the company has said mandating one type of connector “stifles innovation.”
Lightning, USB-C and Micro-USB are the three most common types of connectors for mobile device charges. Apple’s new iPhone 15 will sport a USB-C charging port rather than its proprietary Lightning port after new EU rules. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
Interoperability is “extremely important” in the agriculture sector, according to farmer Chris Allam. Farmers often mix and match different brands and tools for the best price or the most efficiency, but he said these days it’s not a given that one brand’s software will work with another.
“The farmer, out of frustration, will end up spending more money just buying two things that are the same brand so they work together,” said Allam, who grows wheat, barley, canola and other crops on his farm east of Edmonton.
Kyle Wiens is a longtime right-to-repair advocate. (Docs/The Nature of Things)
Wiens of iFixit pointed to John Deere’s X-9 combine, a grain harvesting machine. That combine, currently listed online for more than $1 million used, features a digital port that prevents it from being used with non-John Deere implements, he said. John Deere did not respond to an interview request.
“They’re using [software] in an incredibly anti-competitive way.”
But legally, there’s nothing stopping it from doing so.
Ag sector a ‘prime example’
Farm equipment isn’t the only industry where interoperability is a concern — it also comes up in sectors like health care, automotive and gaming.
But “it’s a prime example of the scale and the extent to which the problem reaches into domains that … we traditionally don’t think of as computers,” said Anthony Rosborough, an assistant law and computer science professor at Dalhousie University, who’s written about the issue for the Canada West Foundation think tank.
As the sun sets on the 2013 harvest, Mike Huys gets ready for the next growing season. He loads winter wheat into an air seeder as a heavy crop of chickpeas is harvested nearby. A near-perfect growing season has left many Saskatchewan farmers with bumper crops. (Paul Dornstauder)
At stake in Canadian farm implement manufacturing is roughly $2.4 billion in exports and $8 billion in annual revenue, according to the Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada.
The industry has developed by creating specialty products that are tailored to Canadian crops and topography — those products are also of interest to countries with similar conditions, like Australia and Ukraine.
Exports to the U.S. have grown more than 50 per cent between 2011 and 2021.
“These companies have been very innovative, they’ve been very creative, and they see a lack of interoperability as a little bit of a threat,” said Schmeiser, whose association’s members sell combines and tractors along with attachments and implements.
New bill aims to work around digital locks
There’s hope that new legislation will make it easier for Canadian businesses to deal with digital locks.
A bill from Cypress Hills-Grasslands MP Jeremy Patzer of the Conservative Party creates a new exception under the Copyright Act.
It would allow people to circumvent technological protection measures in order to make one device interoperable with another brand’s, given the tech in question is lawfully obtained.
While the bill was written with the agriculture industry in mind, Patzer said promoting interoperability will have implications for “the entire economy.”
“Anything that involves a plug-and-play-style device, it would have an impact on that.”
‘Right to repair’ aims to make gadgets last longer
As more people look to repair instead of replace broken products, the Canadian government is signalling that ‘right-to-repair’ legislation to help consumers could be on the way.
Wiens agrees.
He believes the current Copyright Act is hindering all kinds of innovation — whether that’s a new header that works with another manufacturer’s combine, or a new ice machine that plugs into another company’s refrigerator.
“We’re just missing those products right now.”
Technical ‘whack-a-mole’ still a risk
A header made by Honey Bee manufacturing is pictured in the company’s manufacturing facility in Frontier, Sask. (Paula Duhatschek/CBC)
There is some concern that a federal bill won’t completely solve the problem.
While it should mean Canadian manufacturers no longer face a legal risk for reverse-engineering their products to work with other brands, they would still be stuck spending time and money trying to catch up with other businesses’ software updates.
“I don’t go to jail, but I still burn $1.5 million of the company’s money making this header work with that combine,” said Scott Smith, component systems and integration manager for Honey Bee.
“That combine can go through a software update from the [mainline manufacturer] and then that’s undone and I start over — so that’s a technical whack-a-mole.”
Smith would like to see provincial legislation requiring that farm equipment be interoperable in order to be sold in Canada — similar to existing laws that require minimum warranties.
Nevertheless, the company plans to take a moment to celebrate if the bill passes the Senate.
“We will be very, very excited,” said Pegg, the company’s manager.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
