Under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act (MVSA), Transport Canada (TC) establishes Canada’s Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations, which apply to motor vehicles, child restraint systems and tires.
All tires in Canada must comply with these minimum safety regulations and their associated performance standards. TC works with all levels of government to keep these standards up to date, and performs tests to ensure compliance. Should a safety defect or non-compliance be suspected, TC investigates and mandates corrective action by the manufacturer (e.g. recall).
Provinces and territories are responsible for deciding whether to require the use of winter tires. Quebec is the only jurisdiction in Canada where the use of winter tires is mandatory province-wide during the winter driving season.
Under the MVSA, tire manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that their tires meet TC’s minimum standards for winter performance.
TC’s minimum performance requirements and testing standards for passenger/light truck winter tires have been in place since 1999. In 2013, the testing requirements for winter tires were updated to be even more stringent. These standards were developed collaboratively between the United States and Canada, and today the standards in the two countries are fully aligned.
Under this standard, winter tires must undergo traction testing on medium packed snow, and achieve a traction index rating equal to, or greater than, 110 (i.e. 10%) when compared to a reference test tire. Under the MVSA, manufacturers are required to certify that their winter tires meet this traction performance test. Manufacturers may then display the corresponding Alpine symbol (a three-peak mountain/snowflake pictogram) on their tires to help drivers easily identify tires that provide a higher level of snow traction suitable for winter driving.
Since the introduction of the updated standard in 2013, the annual average number of collisions during winter months in Quebec decreased by 19% when compared to the five-year annual average prior to the 2013 update. For comparison purposes, over the same time period, the average number of collisions during winter months across Canada decreased by 4%.
TC conducts compliance testing to ensure that winter tires meet federal safety requirements. For example, since 2014, TC has tested more 60 different winter tire models with the Alpine symbol affixed. Of these 60 tire models, only one was found to be in non-compliance with the safety requirements, which resulted in a recall of these tires.
Some manufacturers are marketing winter tires that exceed the minimum winter requirements set by TC, and are making claims regarding performance on ice. A minimum government standard for winter tire performance on ice surfaces does not exist in Canada, the United States or European Union due to challenges with developing a repeatable test on ice surfaces, and due to potential tradeoffs in performance in icy conditions versus snow/slush conditions.
As part of continuing efforts to strengthen safety in this area, TC is undertaking the following actions:
launching a new round of compliance testing of winter tires in November 2019 (thereby doubling the annual amount of winter tire testing);
working with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to consider updates to the standard reference tire for comparison purposes, which will help support a continued strengthening of the harmonized standard being used for winter tire compliance testing; and
monitoring the current efforts by European agencies to see if they have any success in developing a standard specific to ice traction.
