OTTAWA, ON - The Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, the Hon. Pierre Arcand, announced on December 7th the implementation of a program for the inspection and maintenance of automotive vehicles (with the French acronym PIEVA), and introduced Bill no. 48, An Act concerning the environmental inspection of motor vehicles. The legislative changes proposed will, among other things, confer new powers under the Environment Quality Act. These powers are prerequisite tools that are necessary to implement the new program.

According to the Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique (AQLPA), 25% out of 600 recent light vehicle inspections in 2010 did not meet the minimum standards of operation of the vehicle-emission control system. With the help of a program such as PIEVA, the Quebec government will be closer to achieving its goals of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gas by 20% from 1990 to 2020.

Some sources, such as the Automobile Protection Association (APA), suggest that the emissions testing results of the Drive Clean program in Ontario indicate that only 5% of vehicles inspected failed the evaluation. However, this statistic is false - the actual failure rate of vehicles undergoing vehicle-emissions tests from the Drive Clean program, according to the Drive Clean website1, is actually of 10.8%. In addition, 1.3% of vehicles received a conditional pass, indicating that these vehicles had initially failed the vehicle-emissions test, signifying that 4 million (12.1%) of vehicles fail their first emissions test in Ontario. "Québec is surrounded by the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, which already have vehicle inspection programs. Québec's PIEVA program will ensure that people who buy used vehicles will know that they are purchasing automobiles that are of same environmental quality as those of neighbouring provinces," said Mr. Brazeau.

The PIEVA program is intended to control and reduce fuel waste and to limit the emissions of contaminants that cause problems including smog, acid rain and global warming, for owners of vehicles 8 years and older in Quebec. "Vehicles aged 8 years and older still have a long life ahead of them. Consumers today are choosing to keep their vehicles longer, and they are right to do so, as car manufacturing has improved and vehicles are lasting longer. With proper vehicle maintenance, vehicle owners can drive safely and in the long run save money. Preventative vehicle maintenance and the PIEVA program will contribute to the protection of the environment and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," concluded Marc Brazeau, President of AIA Canada.