Across Canada, a growing number of everyday products, from phones and laptops to tractors and kitchen appliances, can be mended only by the company that built them or by the shops it approves. A heated debate has broken out in provincial legislatures over whether owners ought to have the right to repair the things they buy, or to carry them to any independent shop they choose. Under most current arrangements, manufacturers keep the spare parts, the manuals, and the diagnostic software to themselves, so a simple fix often means a costly trip back to the maker.

Warren Beaumont, who speaks for the Electronics Makers Association, an organization funded by device manufacturers, defends the present system firmly. "We lobby the legislatures to keep repair information in the hands of the companies that create these products," says Beaumont. "Designing a modern device swallows years of effort and vast sums of money, and a botched repair by an untrained hand can start a fire or leak private data. Even a soundly built product sometimes draws a lawsuit. To carry all of that risk, manufacturers must stay profitable, so lawmakers should leave the repair rules exactly as they stand." Beaumont likens independent repair shops to freeloaders. "They invest nothing in design; they take none of the risks of bringing a product to market; they invent nothing of their own. They simply skim a profit from the work of others, without adding anything back."