In Canada, ESC will become compulsory in all new vehicles built on or after 1 September 2011 in order to help drivers avoid road collisions. The new Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 126 will apply to passenger cars, multi-purpose vehicles, trucks and buses weighing 4,536 kilograms or less. The timeline for manufacturers to install ESC in vehicles in Canada coincides with its adoption in the United States.
Transport Canada has been evaluating the performance of ESC since 2004 by testing various vehicles with proprietary variants of ESC systems; the results obtained were very impressive. The data indicates that vehicles equipped with ESC were involved in approximately 30% fewer severe collisions involving loss of control than non-ESC equipped vehicles. Based on 2006 collision data, if all passenger vehicles were equipped with ESC, there would be at least 225 fewer deaths and 755 fewer people seriously injured on our roads each year.
More information on the regulation can be found on http://www.tc.gc.ca/esc. The website also includes consumer-oriented information on ESC, such as the availability of ESC in models sold in Canada for model years 2007 to 2010 inclusively. For model year 2010, ESC is fitted as standard equipment on all trims of over 80% of the models available in Canada.
•Regulation (Canada Gazette, Part II, Vol 143, No. 26 - December 23, 2009)  pdf (3.6 MB)
•Technical Standards Document No 126 pdf (164 KB)
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