Bill C-23 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act

Competition Act

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to speak at third reading of Bill C-23. It is to all intents and purposes the end, at least in the House, of a long process which, as colleagues who spoke before me have said, began many months ago, in 1999-2000.

Many individuals and stakeholders have taken part in the debate, in the examination, which led to the introduction of Bill C-23. It is, as I was saying, the product of long consideration. Therefore, I think we should be pleased at the amendments made to the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act. I think these amendments tighten up the Competition Act. I will come back to the process in a few minutes.

I will, if I may, digress a little with respect to the speech my colleague in the Canadian Alliance has just made.

His speech started well and was very interesting, I thought. The end of it, however, was not a little disappointing as he encouraged the government to draft legislation to promote competition and, in the same breath, criticized the fact that there is a Competition Act that permits competition. There is a certain lack of consistency here. With all due respect for my colleague in the Canadian Alliance, I must say that he seems to be speaking for big business in Canada, which naturally would like the body of laws applying to matters of competition to be as flexible and as minimal as possible.

He is forgetting very quickly that in Canada, and in Quebec, especially, the fabric of the economy is comprised essentially of small and medium sized businesses, that would absolutely not survive in a context of free market competition, which is what our colleague from the Canadian Alliance is energetically calling for.

A certain number of parameters must therefore be established to enable all businesses to be able to compete fairly regardless of size. Some businesses, some corporations, will be in a position to do more because of their size. Under the circumstances, provisions will have to be put in place to ensure that there is a proper and fair context for all sectors of industry.

In this connection, we in the Bloc Quebecois consider, as we always have moreover, that the Competition Act in its present form, despite its laudable objectives, does not contain the means, does not contain sufficient elements, is not sufficiently stringent, and does not have sufficient teeth to avoid certain behaviours that are anti-competitive.

Of course, although Bill C-23 does improve the existing legislation just slightly, we would have liked it to go a great deal further. The preliminary examination in committee provided us with the opportunity, as I said last Friday, to broaden the spectrum of possible interventions and the provisions that could have been added to the bill in order to respond to this desire to create a body of legislation, which would be more able to provide a context favourable to competition.

We would, therefore, have liked this bill to go a lot further than it does. We made an intervention, in fact several, in committee. As well, here in this House we tried to get the Competition Act tightened up further via an amendment presented last friday by my colleague from Laval Centre. Using a number of arguments that I still consider fallacious, the government saw fit to defeat that amendment, a point to which I shall return shortly.

Let us get back to the process. As I said, this is a process that began in 1999. The discussions went on and on. The committee worked really hard on this issue. Incidentally, I want to take this opportunity to thank my predecessor as Bloc Quebecois critic on industry, science and technology, the hon. member for Témiscamingue, who did an absolutely remarkable job along with the other committee members. The Department of Industry was also interested in a possible review of the Competition Act.

It must be said, and it is important to point this out when referring to the long process leading up to Bill C-23, that certain provisions on competition in the Canadian legislation go back more than 100 years. Some of these provisions deserve to be updated, given the economic context and framework in 2001.

The government, the Department of Industry, and particularly the minister himself, showed an interest in improving the Competition Act. Some proposals were made by a number of colleagues in this House, including private members' bills, Bills C-402 and C-472 presented by the hon. member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, Bill C-438 presented by the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, and Bill C-471 presented by the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, among others.

Oddly enough, the government chose to integrate these bills and decided to include in the legislation now before the House, namely Bill C-23, only the proposals made by government members. We would have hoped that the government would be as receptive to proposals from the other side of the House, but it does not look as if it is the case.

Be that as it may, the debate transcended parliament, since we asked civil society, including through the Public Policy Forum, to take part in the debate and to express its views on a possible reform of the Competition Act. I must say, and the minister mentioned it on Friday, that we heard essentially two different views.

Obviously, this is putting it bluntly, I will not deny it, but if we want to put things in context, there were basically two viewpoints.

First, there was the viewpoint of big business, which sounded much like our colleague from the Canadian Alliance, who said earlier that the Competition Act needs as little changing as possible, and that we most definitely must not include a right to private access or any other provisions or proposals that would go beyond what Bill C-23 contains. Then there were representatives from small and medium sized businesses who demonstrated a great deal of interest in including provisions that had not been included in the original Bill C-23, particularly the right to private access.

I will not delve any further into the details of the contents of Bill C-23. I think that the two previous speakers in this debate did a good job explaining the impact of the bill. I will simply recall the four main amendments that Bill C-23 originally contained: first, facilitating co-operation with foreign competition authorities with respect to evidence in civil action; second, prohibiting deceptive prize notices sent out to the general public and sent by mail and through the Internet; third, streamlining the Competition Tribunal process by providing for cost awards, summary dispositions and references; and fourth, broadening the scope under which the tribunal may issue temporary orders.

Finally, following the work done by the committee and the speeches made by its members, particularly the highly eloquent ones by the member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge, based on the legislation to which I referred earlier, the government has agreed to make a few additions to these original four main elements in the bill.

First of all, provision has been added for private access, independently of the Competition Tribunal, so that private companies can take their competition cases directly, on their own behalf, to the tribunal in four specific areas mentioned in clauses 75 and 77 concerning refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tied selling and market restriction.

Amendments have also been made to the bill with respect to dominant position. One has the feeling, from the wording of these amendments, that particular aim was being taken at a problem forced on us by the prevailing economic situation now facing the airlines.

Under section 104.1 of the Competition Act, the commissioner will be permitted to issue interim orders so as to prevent a company under investigation from continuing or resuming anti-competitive acts. As well, an airline could be required to pay monetary penalties, because this is indeed the purpose behind the particular amendments in this regard, under clause 79 concerning abuse of dominant position.

We would have preferred that the government not try to use these amendments to deal with a very specific situation. Abuse of dominant position can also be observed in other industrial sectors.

I come back to what I was saying earlier concerning the amendment put forward Friday by the member for Laval Centre. This amendment, as the House will recall, is taken word for word from a provision in Bill C-472, presented earlier by the member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge, with the exception of three little words which independent gas retailers wanted to see dropped: standard market conditions. I will not go back over these three words, on the significance of the amendment. I spoke on this at some length Friday, when we debated Bill C-23 at report and second reading stages.

I simply want to say at this point that we would have liked the government to be more receptive with respect to abuses of dominant position in other sectors of the economy, not just in the airline industry. We on this side were referring specifically to what happened a certain number of weeks and months ago in the case of the sharp rise in gas prices.

Naturally, the minister himself told me in committee when he appeared that the cost of gasoline was actually quite low, so why get upset over the issue of gasoline prices? The current body of laws, even amended, does not protect us from a new flare-up of gasoline prices. This amendment among other things serves to protect independent distributors against the dominant position of the major oil companies, which alone control 90% of the Canadian oil refinery and distribution market and we would have liked to see it pass. We would also have liked to have section 45 of the Competition Act amended. This section, I remind you, is over 100 years old. A number of things have changed in the meantime, and these changes must be taken into account.

We would have liked an amendment on the relevance of keeping the word unduly in the section. I know that it raised a lot of debate. Some claim the word should be eliminated; others think it should be retained. I myself think the issue should have been expanded and the work not disrupted so that we could not go beyond the provisions contained in Bill C-23, with the few amendments, albeit significant but limited, that were finally added at the conclusion of the work of the committee.

It should be noted that despite the good intentions of the committee members and the witnesses who appeared before the committee—and I must, in this regard, congratulate and thank the witnesses for the depth of the analyses and comments they contributed—we might have done well to pay much more attention to them and to integrate more of these analyses and proposals into Bill C-23.

For a whole slew of reasons, it was decided not to. That said, despite all the goodwill of the committee members and the witnesses who appeared, it must be recognized that the very organization of our committee precluded our doing a really thorough job on this issue.

When the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology meets four times a week to discuss three different topics, this makes the members' work difficult. It is hard for them to manage to address each of these three issues in depth, each theme raised in its four meetings each week. I think we would be better off if we were to consolidate the work, make it more consistent and thus be able to go into the various matters raised in committee in a little more depth.

Returning the subject at hand, as I said, it would have been worthwhile in my opinion to have been able to go into it further. Nevertheless, we must admit reality: Friday, the minister referred to the quality of the committee's work, and described it, rightly so in my opinion, as non-partisan. It is regrettable, however, that at the very end he adopted an attitude that was close-minded, to say the least, if not downright partisan, in rejecting the amendment proposed by my colleague from Laval Centre.

Those then, are my reservations, and I hope the minister listens to them. On Friday, I expressed the wish that he listen to the speech I gave on my colleague from Laval Centre's amendment. Similarly today, I trust that through his parliamentary secretary he will be attentive to the discussion of today.

That said, I am greatly perplexed and taken aback by the government's decision not to go any further with the pre-examination of Bill C-23 by broadening it. Yet, by its own admission, it intends to review and revise the Competition Act once again, at some point next February.

Rather than doing things a bit a time, perhaps we ought to have carried out a more thorough study of the proposed amendments to the Competition Act, and these could have integrated the concerns of my colleague from Laval Centre as well as the very legitimate concerns of my colleague from Jonquière concerning clause 45. As hon. members are aware, my colleague from Jonquière has spoken out in the media, here in Ottawa, in the House of Commons, and in committee, as well as in the national assembly, concerning clause 45. Perhaps we could have indeed gone into it further.

However, despite the concerns that I raise here today, and that I have raised in the past, particularly on Friday, and to which I hope the government is sensitive, despite all this, I would once again like to repeat today that the Bloc Quebecois, as it has always done since 1993 and even before then, when the founding members of the Bloc Quebecois sat as independent members, has always acted in the best interests of all, particularly in the interests of Quebecers, regardless of partisan politics.

Statistics show this to be true. Since the beginning, since Confederation, the Bloc Quebecois is probably the political party that has most often voted in support of government bills and initiatives. We are not guided by the extremely narrow prism of partisan politics. What guides our analysis in the Bloc Quebecois is the best interests of all, and particularly, the interests of Quebecers.

So despite the concerns that I raise today, I would like to repeat that the Bloc Quebecois will vote in favour of this bill because we believe it to be a step in the right direction. The government was not willing to take the steps required to make even more improvements to the Competition Act, but it is nonetheless a step. We can only hope that the government will continue to make progress so that some day we can have legislation that fosters truly healthy competition within our economic environment.

[Charlie Penson, Canadian Alliance, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to take part in the debate today on the final, third reading of Bill C-23, amendments to the Competition Act.

The bill has quite a long history that goes back to two years ago when I was involved in the standing committee on industry, which conducted hearings on the Competition Act. In addition, the Competition Bureau commissioner decided that there should be a parallel hearing and a public policy forum conducted hearings across Canada as well and heard many witnesses.

Out of that process four main elements were brought forward that were identified as needed changes to the Competition Act. They were: co-operation between Canadian and foreign competition authorities; the prohibiting of the deceptive notice of prizes; streamlining of the tribunal process itself; and the broadening of the temporary orders. During the process and the consideration of the bill at committee stage, we added an important fifth category, that is, the right of private access.

I want to talk a little about these amendments that will bring the Competition Act up to speed in terms of globalization and the recognition that Canada has become an international player of some magnitude and therefore needs to have co-operation with international authorities in order to have better competition law. I would note that the OECD and the World Trade Organization have been doing some studies to bring forward international competition agreement in that process as well.

The agreement on the co-operation aspect of Canadian with international authorities really is just a reflection of the nature of business these days. Canada of course is exporting 87% of all of our exports to the United States. That is a significant amount of money and makes up 40% of the GDP of our country. We also export to Japan and Canadians invest in other countries in increasing numbers. In fact, about four years ago there was a sea change in Canadian investment. We now have more direct Canadian investment outside our country than we have direct foreign investment in Canada, so Canadians are looking for a home in which to invest and they need the assurance of good competition law in those other countries.

More and more, business is international in scope and therefore we need co-operation. These amendments concern civil competition matters and essentially mirror the existing arrangements we already have on criminal matters with the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. They apply only to the civil part, which will bring it up to speed. The change will assist the Competition Bureau in gathering information to make its decisions affecting competition in Canada. It will ensure that the decisions about domestic competition matters are made in Canada and we support that important aspect of it.

In terms of the prohibiting of the deceptive notices of winning prizes, I am not quite sure if it needs to be in the Competition Act although I know some people are taking advantage of this aspect. If this will help reduce the problems for them I guess we can go along with it, but it really seems to me that people have to take a little more responsibility for their own personal actions. If people are given notice by telephone that they have won a million dollars but in order to qualify they have to send in $5,000 or $10,000 to a certain company, I would think that they should be pretty aware of where that may lead. It seems to me that government really cannot put in regulations and hold people's hands. People have to make those kinds of decisions and have to be aware that there are those out there who are taking those types of actions. I am not sure this really will amount to much, but if it means there could be some improvement we would support it.

The third category is the streamlining of the Competition Tribunal process by providing the tribunal with the power to award costs. This is really important because we have added to the act the important part of the right to private access. Essentially it allows people to bypass the Competition Bureau and take their actions right to the Competition Tribunal.

If there are frivolous acts, nuisance acts or acts to try to find out information which might give people a competitive advantage over their competitor, at least the Competition Tribunal can now award costs. It cannot award damages but costs are a significant factor. If people are brought before the tribunal and have to defend themselves against frivolous actions, at least the tribunal can order the parties who have lost the case to pay costs to the parties that have been brought before it. That is a good move and we need it.

The Competition Tribunal has also been given the power to make summary dispositions and also to determine references. A summary disposition means that it has the right to tell someone coming before it whether or not it will hear the case. It is like a pretrial I would think. The tribunal can determine if it is a frivolous action and refuse to hear it. That kind of safeguard will help protect the Competition Act and will give the Competition Tribunal the power that it needs.

The fourth aspect that was included was the right to broaden the powers of temporary orders. This is important, especially in the case of the airline industry where huge losses can take place in a very short period of time. Cease and desist orders are important. We have seen about three airlines go under this last year in Canada. Perhaps if there would have been tougher cease and desist orders, Canada 3000 still would be providing competition on a lot of runs. Therefore we believe this is necessary.

There are also severe penalties in the airline industry on those companies that would embark on practices to essentially put a competitor out of business. If they ignore the cease and desist orders, they will be hit with severe penalties.

Then of course we talked about the right of private access which was brought about by an amendment through the committee process.

I believe every Canadian has the right to have his or her day in court. Right now the competition commissioner or the Competition Bureau acts as a gatekeeper in deciding who can have a case brought before the tribunal. I and my colleague from Edmonton Southwest were convinced, during the hearings and the whole process of consideration of Bill C-23 at committee, that that was an important element which would help strengthen competition policy in Canada. Therefore, we agree with that.

I just want to say a word or two about the airline industry. Every time we get a flurry of amendments to the competition policy or competition law, it seems as though something has stirred it up. This time it happens to be the airline industry. Some people think that we can run our industry policy in Canada out of the Competition Bureau. That simply does not work. It is important to have a strong competition policy. However it is not a substitute for a healthy business environment, with a true competitive nature, which would allow businesses to compete and provide services to Canadians.

The airline industry is a good case in point. If all these things, such as intervention and regulation, served the purpose, we would have a great airline industry functioning in Canada. However intervention and regulation have the opposite effect in most cases. Therefore, the Competition Bureau, the Competition Tribunal and competition law are important to have but the government needs to clean up some of its act when it comes to intervening in the economy.

In the airline industry Air Canada is a good case in point. Its merger with Canadian a few years ago had strict regulations. In fact, Air Canada was told it had to keep its head office in Montreal and that it had to maintain so many employees. What kind of business can function under those kinds of rules? When the economy is in a downturn, it does not make any sense. Businesses have to be flexible, innovative and be able to adopt new measures. Intervention does not allow that.

There are several other aspects in the case of Air Canada, such as attracting new investment in our country. New investment rules would go a long way to solving some of these problems and might have even stopped Canadian from going under a few years ago.

Important things need to be considered so that the competition law is not the only avenue and in fact is not the best avenue to competition. A good business environment, low taxes and low regulation are what people tell us we need, along with breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. These are the kinds of things for which businesses are looking. They want less intervention in the economy.

While we support Bill C-23, which strengthens the competition policy, it serves as a limited means of success. We challenge the government to do the things that are necessary to allow competition to exist.

We have lost a decade in the country because of the policies the government has followed. We have had a 30 year decline in direct foreign investment in Canada, year after year. We have a Canadian dollar that has lost ground for over 30 years and is now at 62 cents U.S. That says something about government policy. We have government policy that has intervened more and more in the economy over the past 30 years, I suggest, going back to Mr. Trudeau.

The current government, under the present Prime Minister, does not seem to be going in any different direction. Look at the cases of grants and contributions to businesses across the country. This is a government that has totally lost direction. It is rudderless and needs to be replaced because businesses are suffering. Canadian companies trying to compete against companies in the United States are not enjoying the competitive advantages they need to enjoy.

We have the highest personal income taxes in the G-7 and very high taxes against those of our OECD neighbours, which is the measurement with which Canada has to compete. Yet we have a government that does not seem to pay attention. It thinks we can substitute the healthy business environment with competition law and it simply will not work.

In the case of the cease and desist section, although we are strengthening it, companies engaging in practices that are harmful to a competitor and competition now have to wait 30 days. They may get another 30 days in which they are banned from engaging in those practices, but after 120 days has expired they can go at it again.

We should let businesses do what they do best. Let the competition law serve its limited capacity, as it was designed to do, in protecting competition, not competitors. Let us have a government that stops intervening in the economy, and the country would be far better off for it.

[Claude Drouin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on third reading of Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act. It is important, I believe, to underscore the main amendments contained in the bill as introduced today.

The purpose of the first set of amendments is to prohibit deceptive prize notices. They will prevent unscrupulous promoters from deceiving people, often seniors, with phony mailings suggesting they have won a prize without disclosing the real costs relating to it. The amendments set out clear rules that will enable honest businesses to continue their legitimate activities.

A second set of amendments is for the purpose of facilitating international co-operation with respect to civil cases involving competition. The proposed changes will make it possible to collect evidence in other countries relating to investigations of civil fraud cases, taking a similar approach to what is already in place for criminal cases.

It is also noteworthy that the proposed approach pays particular attention to protecting the confidentiality of information already in the possession of the commissioner, as well as information volunteered by the parties. This new investigational tool will ensure that enforcement decisions relating to competition will be taken right here in Canada.

The third set of amendments will, under certain circumstances, allow the competition tribunal to award costs, make summary dispositions and determine references.

The fourth set of amendments extends the powers of the competition tribunal with respect to interim orders. The proposed amendments will enable the tribunal to issue interim orders, when certain conditions have been met, to put an end to an anti-competitive practice at the commissioner's investigation stage.

The maximum duration of an interim order will be 80 days, with a possibility of extension if the commissioner has not succeeded in obtaining the necessary information to complete his investigation and thus to determine whether an application will be made to the competition tribunal.

Five, the amendments will include providing private parties with limited access to the competition tribunal. The balanced solution presented by the committee will allow competitors to go before the competition tribunal to settle disputes covered by sections 75 and 77 of the Competition Act, namely, refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tied selling, and market restriction.

Private parties must obtain prior authorization from the tribunal to file an application for order. Furthermore, supplementary protection measures have been included to avoid strategic proceedings. Some of these measures include the tribunal's determining fees, guarantees to avoid two proceedings regarding the same case, the fact that the tribunal may not award damages, and a liability period for all requests.

Six, there are amendments to provide extra protection for competition in the Canadian airline industry.

The first amendment extends an interim order beyond 80 days if the commissioner has not received all the information necessary to allow him to determine whether or not grounds exist to make an application to the tribunal. The commissioner must make a request to the tribunal to obtain such an extension.

The purpose of the second amendment under this heading is to encourage the dominant carrier to respect the Competition Act. It allows the tribunal to impose administrative monetary penalties of up to $15 million, in addition to the cease and desist order set out in section 79 on the abuse of dominant position.

The purpose of this bill is to maintain an efficient, innovative and competitive market in a rapidly changing economy. I believe that we have fulfilled this purpose with Bill C-23.

Once again, I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the committee, the competition commissioner and all the stakeholders that provided their comments for the monumental work that was done in order to ensure that the Competition Act remains effective and up to date.

[Allan Rock, Liberal, for the Minister of Industry]

moved that Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Madam Speaker, I too am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-23. Before I begin, I will say how happy I am to have this opportunity, as this legislation has been in the making for a long time.

First, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Laval Centre. The amendment she put forward is, in my view, quite relevant and interesting. By putting forward this amendment, I believe she proved how competent and multi-talented she is. My colleague from Laval Centre excels in a number of areas, including culture and health care, as she said herself. But I did not know she had such expertise in the area of competition. I want to congratulate her and tell her how happy we are to be able to debate this brilliant amendment in the House today.

That being said, we must give credit where credit is due. Although the government is unable to do so, for our part, we routinely recognize the value and merit of our opponents' work. This bill is the result of the work done by a number of members who do not belong to cabinet. They put forward private members' bills that caught the eye of the government to such an extent that it decided to include them in what I would call an omnibus bill, as it deals with various aspects of the Competition Act, with a view to amend and improve it.

The bills I refer to are Bill C-402 inroduced by the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, Bill C-438 by the member for Kitchener Centre, Bill C-471 by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and Bill C-472, again by the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge.

I am not sure that we need to conclude from this listing of the work by members, which the government has decided to use as a basis for drafting is Bill C-23, that the government is not interested in, or does not take into consideration, or does not choose to use, anything but suggestions from its own members. We must, however, be glad that the work done by MPs on an individual basis, or in other words the private members' bills and motions can gain momentum and end up with a positive outcome in the House, as is the case with Bill C-23.

I hope that the minister is lending an attentive ear to what we are saying this afternoon, because his very careful attention to the first speeches was obvious. Let us hope that same attention has been given to the last ones. I think he was justified in pointing out that the bill is the outcome of conscientious and non partisan efforts by departmental staff, of course, but also and primarily by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. For some months now, the committee has been addressing a potential review of the legislation and of the options and avenues that might be envisaged to tighten up Canada's Competition Act .

It is fortunate that, at the conclusion of this work, we were able before its examination to debate Bill C-23, which, as I was saying, is intended to act on certain suggestions.

However, it is unfortunate that the bill did not go further and that this pre-examination did not allow us to go further. The pre-examination should have allowed us to do so, because we had not accepted the principle of the bill. We could therefore have possible expanded the scope of concerns and the various amendments that could have been proposed.

It is also regrettable that the minister, while his speech was very carefully worded, if I can put it like that, set a rather partisan tone at the end of the debate, because, as he had indicated, up to that point the debate had been non-partisan.

We worked together as a committee to improve the bill. I think the amendment by my colleague from Laval Centre would have had the effect, the advantage, of improving the bill substantially. But since this amendment, it appears, did not come from a government member, arguments that I consider fallacious were cited to reject it, politely, I must say, but reject it nevertheless.

But it is not quite true that this amendment came from a member who is not a government member. And no, I am not announcing publicly that my colleague has decided to cross the floor of the House. However, her amendment was largely based on the work done by the hon. member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge. This work resulted in certain provisions being included in Bill C-472, which sought to protect small retailers, particularly in the oil industry, and small businesses against bigger ones.

In this regard, when they appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, the representatives of the Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole mentioned—and the minister should reread their evidence—that some provisions in Bill C-472 seemed to promote their interests, including their access to the resource.

Right now, we have a quasi-monopoly in which the resource—crude oil, oil, gas, refined product—is provided by a very small number of companies. These companies are in a position to drive independent retailers out of business.

Bill C-472 included provisions which eliminated this power of the major oil companies over the small independent businesses. The Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole had just one small reservation and its concerned the expression standard market conditions used in Bill C-472, which it wanted to see removed from the bill.

Why? Because the standard market conditions are defined by the major oil companies in this instance. These companies determine what these conditions are. So, they could have argued before the competition tribunal that the demands of the independent companies went against the standard market conditions they themselves established.

Also, as I said, with extraordinary prescience, my colleague from Laval Centre took from Bill C-472 the relevant provision but without the expression standard market conditions. She presented this amendment, which the hon. member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge had himself considered, to the House.

Therefore, the minister should be more open to this motion in amendment since it came initially, not from an opposition backbencher but from a government member.

I invite the House to vote in favour of this amendment, which I believe is important for small businesses, independent distributors and everyone who is faced with a monopolistic or oligopolistic situation. I hope all members will support this amendment.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand during second reading of Bill C-23, the amendment to the Competition Act, and speak not only to the amendment of the member for Laval Centre but to the entire bill.

As mentioned by the Minister of Industry, the amendments were proposed to make it easier for the government to co-operate with foreign competition tribunals. In the global economy it is important that governments have the ability to co-operate with each other when dealing with multinational organizations.

The bill was also introduced to prohibit deceptive notices of prizes. The member for the Canadian Alliance mentioned that it was the responsibility of the individuals receiving such notices to know there was a scam and that they were being set up. A lot of the people who respond tend to be elderly people who are lonely, who are by themselves, who do not get much mail and who in many cases are not completely aware of what is happening in the world and have no reason to suspect a it may be a sham.

For a lot of our older generation that is not part of the culture it grew up in or is one of which it is aware. It seems to be a relatively new phenomenon that letters go out telling people they have won a prize but must put money into it to collect. It is important that we have measures to limit and legislate against that kind of deception through the mail.

Bill C-23 was also introduced to streamline the Competition Tribunal process. Lord knows that any process dealing with quasi-judicial bodies needs to be streamlined. It was interesting to hear the minister's comments about not wanting to establish a culture of unnecessary litigation. His government seems to think it is quite all right to take Canadians to court and get into the litigation process. It will be interesting to see whether the government will take note of the amendments it has put into the Competition Act to limit unnecessary litigation.

The bill was also introduced to broaden the tribunal's ability to issue temporary orders. I know from my days as transportation critic that the competition commissioner and tribunal need to be able to react immediately to situations, even if the actions are temporary, to put cease and desist orders in place and allow some kind of remediation to occur.

Bill C-23 has already been to committee. It was dealt with at the committee level. Witnesses from the business community and elsewhere appeared at the committee to give their impressions of how the amendments might affect them. Two additional amendments were recommended at committee so we now have two amendments to the legislation that was originally put before committee.

One of these concerns is the private right to access. We have heard how important it is for companies, corporations, small business people and individuals to have the ability to advance their causes even though the Competition Tribunal may not think they are as important as other issues. As in many cases, once something is put on the back burner the damage is already done before it can be dealt with. It is important that private right to access be added to the legislation.

There are also tough new measures to deal with anti-competitive practices in the airline industry. Canadians across the country know the difficult times the airline industry has been through. We have recently seen the demise of the second largest air carrier in Canada, Canada 3000. Although the competition commissioner was prepared to put a cease and desist order, the process of applying for the order and having it put in place is often not quick enough to stop the damage that takes place through predatory or overtly anti-competitive practices.

The private right to access is extremely important. It allows private parties to apply directly to the Competition Tribunal for remedies concerning refusal to deal, tied selling, market restriction and exclusive dealing.

As I mentioned earlier, it is important for people to be able to challenge what is considered to be unfair practices by a competitor trying to put out a smaller competitor simply through the use of these kinds of tactics. It is very important to the well-being of members of the small business community to be able to fight back. This legislation will provide them with an opportunity to challenge larger businesses that are trying to put them out of business. It is a very healthy thing in the bill.

Private access also means that if the competition commissioner feels that something is not as important as, say, airline restructuring, it can still go through the process and it is not be tied up for years.

The legislation will create additional case law that will provide the business community with a better understanding of what the laws of the land are and how they might fall under the practices considered not to be in the best interests of competition. It will develop case law that can be used for the furtherance of fair business practices.

The amendments will allow for new penalties, including fines of up to $15 million for an airline acting in an anti-competitive manner. One of the concerns we heard in reaction to Canada 3000 going under and other complaints before the commission, was that the legislation had no teeth to allow the competition commissioner to respond in a way that would stop predatory behaviour. It is nice to see that the legislation will finally contain teeth so the competition commissioner will have some meaningful input into keeping anti-competitive behaviour at bay.

The ability of the competition commissioner to extend cease and desist orders beyond the current 80 days is very important. Because of the time it takes to prepare a case and to bring the complaint against a competitor, it is very timely and sometimes the application has not been processed before the cease and desist order expires. We are very pleased to see this extension because it will make the process more meaningful.

I want to bring up the fact that Air Canada is objecting to the amendments. It feels that it is not right that the competition commissioner or Competition Act would single out one industry, it being the industry being singled out.

Letters were sent from one of its bankers to members of the transport and industry committees claiming that this amendment will prevent the issuance of new equity shares to assist the airline in raising new funds. It should be noted that this would appear to have been very poorly handled by the company seeing as it was the Prime Minister's former chief communications officer who forwarded the letter to members of parliament. The letter which was forwarded to members and both the transport and industry critics was seen by some to have the appearance of a threat. From my discussions with many government MPs, it would appear that there is not a great deal of fondness for the message from the Prime Minister's former chief spin doctor.

The airline is concerned that these amendments were tabled after its appearance at the industry committee. I would think that is a legitimate complaint.

Some have sympathy for the airline because it was not given an opportunity to respond in kind to the industry committee after the fact. The industry committee would probably be wise to allow Air Canada to appear before it and have its case heard.

This is important legislation. We must make sure there is competition, particularly in the airline industry. The coalition will be supporting Bill C-23 at second reading.

[Charlie Penson, Canadian Alliance, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to take part in the report stage debate on Bill C-23. The bill has had a lot of work, as many members have already identified.

Four main components were originally identified in Bill C-23. They are: the co-operation between Canadian and foreign competition authorities; the prohibiting of deceptive notices of prizes; streamlining of the tribunal; and also the broadening of temporary orders. We have added an important fifth category, that of right of private access. The Bloc members are trying to make some amendments today through Motion No. 1, which I want to speak to in a moment.

It seems to me that the amendments to be made to Bill C-23 regarding co-operation between Canadian and international authorities really just are a reflection of the nature of business. More and more business is international in scope and therefore we need co-operation in these areas. These amendments concern the civil competition matters and essentially mirror existing arrangements that we already have on criminal matters with the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. This just applies to the civil aspect.

The change will assist the Competition Bureau in gathering information it needs to make decisions affecting competition in Canada. It will ensure that the decisions about domestic competition matters are made in Canada. We support that.

We are a little more ambivalent to the second category of prohibiting deceptive notices of prizes, We cannot hold people's hands; they have to take some responsibility for their own lives. If this would help, I guess we could go along with it. There needs to be more individual responsibility. When people get a phone call and are told that they have won $100,000 but they are going to have to send in $5,000 to get it, they should be pretty wary of what is coming at them.

The third category is the streamlining of the Competition Tribunal process by providing the tribunal with the power to award costs. I think this is an excellent one especially as we move into the area of private access in order to make sure that no frivolous actions come before the tribunal. It needs that.

It also has the power to make summary dispositions and hear and determine references. The summary dispositions essentially just mean that the tribunal can consider whether it wants to hear the case or not. If it is a trivial matter or one designed to find out what the competition is doing, the Competition Tribunal can dismiss it out of hand.

In order to deal with a couple of other aspects of broadening the powers of temporary orders, that is important, especially in the case of the airline industry where a huge industry can be put out of business in a matter of a few months. The cease and desist orders do need to be strengthened with perhaps longer periods of time. This is also aimed at putting severe penalties against those companies which embark on practices essentially to put a competitor out of business. If they ignore the cease and desist order they will be hit with severe penalties.

These are all important elements. However, I would suggest that competition law, although very important, is no substitute for competition. Sometimes Liberal members on the industry committee and here in the House tend to reflect on the idea that we do not need to have healthy conditions to allow business to operate here in a very competitive manner; we can just substitute that with regulation and intervention. If that were to work in the airline industry, this country would have a thriving airline industry. We know that it has not worked.

Intervention and regulation has hurt the airline industry. It hurts most industries. I believe that competition will flourish if we have the necessary business environment to allow that to happen. That means low taxes and low regulation. Also, things like interprovincial trade barriers have to be eliminated so that we can do business inside our country as well as we can do business outside our borders.

It seems to me that while we need to have this competition law, for those who will not abide by the competitive process, it is no substitute.

I want to deal for a moment with the Bloc amendment to Bill C-23. Our concern is that we think several of the amendments are redundant because they are already in Bill C-23. They are specifically subclauses 1, 3, 4 and 5.

In regard to subclause 2, currently under the refusal to deal provisions, the tribunal can order a supplier to do business with a distributor under usual trade terms. If the amendment were passed, it would cause the tribunal to become a trade regulator which is exactly what we are trying to avoid.

It seems to me that the people who came before the committee and who probably caused this amendment to happen were from the independent petroleum producers. I asked them whether the right to private access satisfy them. They agreed it would. They said that in the past the competition commissioner would not take their case up and bring it forward. He was acting as a gatekeeper. I asked specifically if they had the right to take the case directly to the tribunal, would that satisfy them. The answer was clearly yes. Having said that, they should pursue that option and not try to make more regulations. Let them make their case before the tribunal and determine who is right or wrong on the issue and live by it.

Subclause 6 would limit the commissioner's ability to participate in a private access case. He would get 30 days to intervene and after that he could only do it if the tribunal requested it. That is not necessary.

Subclause 7 would require consent agreements to be filed with the tribunal. Then it would be as though the tribunal had ordered an agreement.

We disagree with those aspects. The others as I named before, subclauses 1, 3, 4 and 5, are already in the bill. We do not support the amendments to the bill that are presented today.

Largely, we believe that the competition policy is serving us well. It is not meant to protect a competitor; it is meant to protect competition throughout the country.

It is very clear to the Canadian Alliance that there is no substitute for a healthy business environment. All the competition policy and law in the world, all the regulation, is not going to accomplish what we can accomplish by allowing as many competitors as possible to be in business. That is the best insurance that there is good, healthy competition across the country, lots of companies competing on a healthy market basis. They will provide the kind of assurances that we need in terms of competition policy.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-23 at report and second reading stage.

First of all, I would like to say that we support this bill. Amending the Competition Act, certain provisions of which go back to the last century, is a step in the right direction.

However, we find it somewhat unfortunate that every time there is an opportunity to improve a situation, to improve a bill, to give it more teeth, and there are often arguments in favour of a complete overhaul, the government prefers a strategy of baby steps.

As I mentioned, this bill is a step in the right direction. But it is the same as the reform of the criminal code, where the government had to take two runs at it before it finally came around to what the Bloc Quebecois had been arguing for a long time.

So it is with the Competition Act. It is entirely to the minister's credit that he accepted these amendments to the Competition Act, which is toothless in Canada, if we compare it to the U.S. legislation. But the government could have gone much further.

As for what is good about this bill, one good idea is encouraging private access since, in the previous legislation, competitors were not allowed to take a case directly to the competition tribunal on their own behalf. I think that this is one notable improvement. It also improves the effectiveness and handling of complaints.

This is limited to four areas. However, they are major ones, if compared to all the complaints referred to the competition tribunal in recent years, including complaints regarding the refusal of suppliers to sell in an anticompetitive context, exclusive dealing, tied selling, and market restriction.

Tied selling is a very important matter. There was a loophole in the legislation with respect to the definition of tied selling, as well as the precise situations in which tied selling could be said to exist, and the measures which were proposed to reduce the risk of the practice.

I will give an example of just how important tied selling is. You are clients of a financial institution. You go to this institution for a loan and you are forced, or strongly encouraged, as a precondition to obtaining the loan, to buy insurance or other financial products offered by the same financial institution.

This kind of tied sales strategy by financial institutions or others is illegal. In that regard, we now have an additional tool to at least reduce the possibility of tied sales, without eliminating it completely, of course, since that is practically impossible.

The fact that interim orders can be issued in cases where a business is suspected of anti-competitive practices is a good idea. Monetary penalties also give more teeth to the legislation, particularly with regard to air carriers.

As I was saying, this is not enough. A few moments ago, the minister promised to continue reviewing the act and to look at further amendments. I would like to mention to him that the first improvement that should be made concerns section 45 of the act. This section, which dates back to the end of the 19th century, allows some form of collusion between multinationals to fix prices or to carry out other anti-competitive activities, such as predatory practices or market segmentation. These practices are totally shameful when one considers what has happened over the years in the oil industry.

Then there are price fixing practices. Our legislation does not have enough teeth to prevent that. We may have our doubts about certain price fixing practices, but we do not yet have the necessary tools to lodge formal complaints in that regard. We saw that in the oil industry in particular.

There is another element missing, namely the merger review process.

Two years ago, there was a major debate on mergers, particularly bank mergers. The debate was very productive, because it gave us a better understanding of what was going on in the industry and what its future might be in light of globalization and the opening up of markets.

On that point, we discovered some flaws in the legislation dealing with competition and we also discovered that parliament lacks the authority to review these merger issues, other than through the Minister of Finance's office, which has the final say on any merger plan and on the analysis resulting from its refusal or approval.

Moreover, when mergers are approved, we do not have the required criteria, analysis mechanisms or legislative tools to deal with any unfair practice that might occur once the mergers are completed.

The minister should examine the issue more thoroughly and maybe, in a way, copy the U.S. legislation, which offers several more remedies than the Canadian legislation.

Finally, as the minister mentioned earlier, the Liberal member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge put forward amendments pertaining to normal trade conditions.

In the legislation, with regard to suppliers, for example, who are in a monopolistic situation where businesses have to buy their input from them, or in an oligopolistic market where three or four suppliers control most of the market, a provision allowing recourse to the Competition Tribunal, which requires, however, that complaints be made in a context of normal business conditions, is not good enough for this kind of market.

I will give an example. In the oil industry, the major oil companies control 85% of the wholesale market for oil products. Then what are the normal conditions in their case? Can they rely on the fact that there are abnormal market conditions, which prevent them from supplying independent retailers, small retailers for example, with crude oil or more refined oil? They can argue that conditions are abnormal, but they forget that they are the ones setting the conditions, determining the market conditions.

So, we would have liked the minister, right from the start, to accept the amendment, which came initially from one of his colleagues and which was picked up by the Bloc, because we are non partisan when the time comes to stand up for the interests of consumers and the industry.

We accept the notion that a Liberal can have a good idea. It happens from time to time. But we would have liked the Minister of Industry to accept this amendment of ours right away. There is still time to do so.

The minister could accept this amendment, which would better protect independent retailers, particularly in the oil industry. It is not really any big deal, just a small additional amendment for the government—the minister is able to do it—to remove the issue of normal conditions, and that is all.

But you can rest assured, Madam Speaker, and I would ask you to speak for us to the minister, that we will make a positive contribution to improving the legislation, because it has needed to be updated for years. It needs to be given some muscle, more teeth, in order to better protect independent retailers in a market often dominated by the big boys. We especially need to protect entrepreneurs and consumers, ultimately, from anti-competitive predatory practices, such as price fixing, as we have seen over the years in the oil industry.

By the way, the price of gas today is at 55 cents per litre, approximately. But we are still not protected—due to shortcomings in competition legislation—from practices that we believed to be predatory in the past, and that allowed gas prices to be set at unprecedented levels, to the detriment of consumers, independent truckers and the economy as a whole.

[Brian Tobin, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to take the opportunity to participate in report stage consideration of Bill C-23. As colleagues have said, this is a bill that is a result of a great deal of very good work by members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. No doubt the bill has been very much improved as a result of the collaborative approach that members have taken and their commitment to working together to make this a much better bill.

The main elements of the bill comprise the prohibition of deceptive prize notices, enhanced mutual international assistance in civil competition matters, streamlining improvements to the Competition Tribunal process, broadening the scope under which the tribunal may issue an interim order, a limited right of access to the tribunal and specific measures to protect competition in the Canadian airline industry.

On the issue of private access there has been a great deal of debate. There have been a great many witnesses and those who spoke who were diametrically opposed to each other with respect to the right of private access. I will come back to that issue in just a moment and refer specifically to the amendment being proposed by the hon. member who spoke just a few moments ago on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois.

First , I want to talk about deceptive practices. The amendment to prohibit deceptive prize notices addresses unscrupulous promoters who mislead their victims into believing they have won a prize without disclosing the excessive costs associated with collecting the prize. The commissioner has testified that this is a growing problem in Canada and the bureau, quite literally, receives thousands of complaints each year.

We have all heard of Canadian seniors receiving scratch and win cards in the mail. People scratch the card and discover they have supposedly won a prize. They then follow instructions and place a telephone call in order to claim their prize. However, they are not forewarned and they cannot know or be aware that the cost of placing the call is generally greater than the value of the so-called prize.

In short, senior citizens across the country are being targeted by corrupt and unscrupulous individuals seeking to quite literally take advantage and to steal their saved, hard-earned monies.

The approach proposed in Bill C-23 sets out a balance between capturing improper conduct and the legitimate practices of the majority of the business community. No doubt there are legitimate prize contests that do in fact treat citizens appropriately.

With respect to foreign evidence gathering, Bill C-23 proposes amendments that will facilitate the gathering of evidence from foreign jurisdictions with respect to civil competition matters. This is similar to what already exists for criminal matters under the mutual legal assistance treaty to which Canada and several dozen other countries are signatories. I believe these amendments will help us do a better job in a wide variety of areas but notably with respect to these corrupt so-called competitions or prize scams.

On a more technical side, the bill proposes to streamline the tribunal process and broaden the powers available to the tribunal. First, the amendments will permit the commissioner and the person who is the subject of an inquiry to refer to the tribunal any question of law in relation to the application or interpretation of the act. This is also available to private parties that agree to refer a question to the tribunal related to part VII.1 through to part IX of the act.

Also, the tribunal will be able to assess costs. The initial position of the government was limited to the assessment of cost by the tribunal in the case of frivolous or vexatious litigation intended to hinder or delay procedures before the tribunal.

Many witnesses before the committee urged the adoption of the ordinary cost rules of commercial litigation in order to have a proper deterrence against strategic litigation. Therefore the government tabled a motion to reflect this concern. Other changes permit the tribunal through summary disposition to rapidly deal with unsubstantiated matters.

The last amendment proposed with respect to tribunal improvements addresses interim orders. We have heard that certain anti-competitive practices cause irreparable harm to the Canadian economy.

Up until now the commissioner could not apply to the tribunal during an inquiry to obtain a cease and desist order to stop anti-competitive conduct. First he had to obtain sufficient evidence to make a case before the tribunal. The problem is that these inquiries are time consuming and they are resource intensive.

The amendments proposed will now allow the tribunal, when certain conditions are met, to render an interim cease and desist order. The order will be issued for an 80 day period with the possibility of extension where the commissioner has not received the information necessary to complete his inquiry and to determine whether an application should be made before the tribunal.

I want to address the matter of private access. Under the current system, the commissioner is the only person who can submit an application before the tribunal. This monopoly has been the subject of several studies over the past three decades. Many proposals have been made to permit the right of private access to the tribunal without involving the commissioner. One of these proposals was contained in a private member's bill tabled here by our colleague, the member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge, and was part of the public policy consultation.

A great deal has been said about private access, during the consultations and again during the committee hearings. There were strong views expressed and, I think it is fair to say, a division, primarily between those who belong to the small and medium sized business community and those who belong to Canada's largest corporations, those that are members of the chamber of commerce. On the one hand, there is a concern for a right to private access, and on the other, the concern that Canada not become a litigious society where strategic litigation occurs primarily for reasons of corporate warfare rather than genuine need or concern. The committee worked very hard to try to resolve both, on the one hand the request for private access, and on the other the concern about not creating an overly litigious corporate environment in Canada.

The amendments that we now see and the manner in which private access is described is very much the result of the good work of the committee and very much the result of the compromise which has been reached between the parties that had diametrically opposing views on the matter as they testified before committee. It is for that reason, because we now have, I think, a measure of harmony and a measure of agreement after a great deal of hard work, good work, by members on all sides of the House,. that I would submit that further amendments or further changes at this stage of the game may very well undo, although that would not be the intention, the consensus and the compromise that has now been reached.

There is one other matter I want to speak to during the time that is available to me and that is that the last set of amendments added to Bill C-23 are specific to the airline industry. This industry was severely affected by the tragic events of September 11. Canadian airline passenger volumes have dropped. Airlines have lost passengers to alternative tourist transportation methods. In the midst of this turbulent period, airlines in Canada and abroad are trying to continue normal operations while adjusting to the impact of the events of September 11.

All the airlines have been affected. At the time of the collapse of Canada 3000, the commissioner had sufficient evidence to issue a temporary cease and desist order against Air Canada for abusing its dominant position to the detriment of Canada 3000. Air Canada's competitors, starting with WestJet, identified shortcomings in the Competition Act that could and, they submitted, should be remedied.

The events, as we all know, attracted much media coverage and commentary across the country, especially after the news that additional amendments would be added to Bill C-23 to address the airline industry specifically. We need to remember that since the coming into force of Bill C-26 in 2000, the Competition Act has included a specific regime for domestic air transport. The amendments tabled today will close a potential gap that was created by Bill C-26 and will encourage compliance with the abuse of dominance provisions of this act.

The commissioner has indicated that based on his experience in the use of the temporary cease and desist power he obtained in Bill C-26 it was possible that the order would expire before an application could be made before the tribunal. The commissioner has an 80 day window in which to determine whether to make an application before the tribunal with respect to an abuse of dominant position by a dominant air carrier, but that determination is dependent upon having the necessary information in his hands.

The perverse effect of the rules as they currently work is that if information is not forthcoming and if in fact an investigation is not completed, the dominant carrier to whom an order is made can return to the abusive conduct the day after the commissioner's order expires. Hence, we have amendments designed to extend the cease and desist period, amendments designed to give real teeth to the powers available to the commissioner, amendments which are timely in the context of returning Canada's airline industry to a stable operation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I too will join in the debate at the report stage of Bill C-23 and on Motion No. 1 which seeks to amend the bill.

We believe the issue brought forward by the member for Laval Centre would benefit the bill and strengthen the intention of the amendments put forward at the committee stage.

I would like to remind all members that there was a great deal of co-operation at the committee stage. We agreed with the general thrust of the motions brought forward at that time. I see nothing in this motion that does anything but augment the direction in which we wanted to go at committee. I admire the hon. member for taking the trouble to introduce it at this stage.

I noticed that sections 75 and 77, which the hon. member seeks to amend, would have the effect of strengthening the private access to the Competition Tribunal for the offences that she mentioned: tied selling, market restrictions and exclusive dealing, and a number of the issues that came forward as being offensive to most Canadians and most Canadians I think wanted the industry committee to deal with these issues in a very strong way.

We look forward to the motion getting the same sort or co-operative support that many of the other amendments received at the committee stage. We hope to approve the amendment as it has been brought forward. I extend my compliments to the member for Laval Centre.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-23 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 28 the following new clause:

“11.31 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 77:

77.1 (1) A person who alleges that they are directly affected in their business or are precluded from carrying on business due to their inability to obtain adequate supplies of a product anywhere in a market may, with leave of the Tribunal, make an application under section 75.

(2) A person who alleges that they are directly affected in their business by exclusive dealing, tied selling or market restriction may, with leave of the Tribunal, make an application under section 77.

(3) No application may be made under section 75 or 77 by a person referred to in subsection (1) or (2) more than two years after the practice has ceased.

(4) Any person making an application under section 75 or 77 shall serve the person in respect of whom the order is sought and the Commissioner with a copy of the application for leave.

(5) The Tribunal shall give notice to the Commissioner of its decision on an application for leave pursuant to this section.

(6) Within thirty days of the granting of leave to a person to make an application under section 75 or 77, the Commissioner may become a party to the application but, after thirty days, may do so only at the request of or with leave of the Tribunal.

(7) Where an application is made to a court for an order under section 75 or 77 and the parties agree on the terms of the order and such terms are in accordance with the terms of this Act, whether or not any of the terms could have been imposed by the court under this Part, the order agreed to may be filed with the court for immediate registration.

(8) On being filed under subsection (7), an order shall be registered and, when registered, shall have the same force and effect, and all proceedings may be taken, as if the order had been made by the court.”

Madam Speaker, I suppose you are rather surprised to see me rise to speak to Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, at report and second reading stage.

As you know, I am much more comfortable dealing with issues regarding health, culture, citizens' relationships and pedagogy. But the House being a forum for pedagogy, you will see that I am very comfortable talking to Bill C-23.

Every day, as private citizens, we are faced with competition. With globalization and the opening of markets, competition is often fierce, and it is not rare to see the little guys being swallowed up by the big guys, at the expense of consumers. Competition is a rather neutral concept. It all depends on how we use it. We all know that this neutrality is all the more delicate as the interests involved are greedy.

I often go for advice to my friends the dictionaries, Robert and Larousse —you know, the one that scatters to the winds . They are a wealth of information that never cease to enrich me. Here is the definition of competition that can be found in the Larousse dictionary.

Competition: Competing interests between several persons creating a competition and, in part, between merchants or firms trying to attract clients with the best price, quality, etc.

It goes on to say:

Free competition: An economic system without any intervention from the state to limit industry and trade freedom, and under which producers coalitions are viewed as a crime.

That is it for definitions. In the end, competition is a bit like what Aesop said about the tongue as being the best and the worst of things. A twisted tongue is as troublesome as unfair competition.

As a matter of fact, Bill C-23 is aimed at improving, albeit slightly, the competition framework. In this area as many others, rules are needed as people should have access to quality products and services at acceptable prices instead of being the victims of practices favouring the corporate bottom line.

If I may, I would like to take a minute to read the summary of Bill C-23, which goes like this:

This enactment amends the Competition Act and Competition Tribunal Act. The amendments include the following:

amendments to facilitate cooperation with foreign competition authorities for the enforcement of civil competition and fair trade practices laws;

amendments prohibiting deceptive prize notices;

amendments streamlining the Competition Tribunal process by providing for cost awards, summary dispositions and references;

amendments broadening the scope under which the Tribunal may issue temporary orders; and

some housekeeping items.

The Bloc Quebecois supports the objectives of Bill C-23 because they are in the interest of the public, since the parameters set in the bill should respond to the legitimate needs of small and medium size businesses and protect the rights of consumers to enjoy the benefits stemming from healthy competition.

Recent events have given us a telling example of what can happen when competition turns into a trade war. Indeed, the softwood lumber issue that comes up regularly, where the Americans impose excessive surcharges on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the United-States, clearly shows the negative and unfair consequences of decisions made in the context of fierce competition.

Another example, just as flagrant as the previous one, is the poor state or even the non-existence of air service to remote communities due to the fact that Air Canada has a quasi-monopoly on air service in this country.

The only way to calm those with an insatiable appetite for profit is to legislate both domestically and within international trade organizations and to be ever vigilant in all spheres of human activity.

Everyone recognizes that Bill C-23 is a step in the right direction, but we could go even further. Indeed, many aspects should be considered by the legislator, including price fixing practices and the merger review process, as well as proceedings before the competition tribunal.

In that spirit, I will read an excerpt from testimony given before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on October 17 by a representative from the Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole. He raised a real concern with regard to the fact that, and I quote:

—access to the Competition Tribunal [would be closed] except in situations of “usual trade terms”. We put it to you that suppliers of petroleum products would only have to illustrate that they cannot supply products because of abnormal trade conditions to stall access to the Tribunal.

We propose instead that the new provisions for access to the Tribunal provide for markets where trade terms are not usual. For example, should there be a relative shortage, supply should be provided to all undertakings on a prorated basis, in keeping with the way that the market usually operates. If, for instance, the amount of product available makes it possible to respond to only 80% of normal needs, the majors and the independents should each be able to obtain 80% of their regular supply. In this way, both types of undertakings would be subject to the same conditions and none would be forced into bankruptcy because of a lack of stock. Given the uncertain international situation at the moment, such a situation might easily arise.

Therefore, it was my great pleasure to introduce in the House, seconded by my colleague, the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes, an amendment to respond to the concerns of small independent retailers. Since the Speaker did not treat us by reading the amendment in her lovely voice, I should like to take a moment now to read it for the House:

That Bill C-23 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 28 the following new clause:

“11.31 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 77:

77.1 (1) A person who alleges that they are directly affected in their business or are precluded from carrying on business due to their inability to obtain adequate supplies of a product anywhere in a market may, with leave of the Tribunal, make an application under section 75.

(2) A person who alleges that they are directly affected in their business by exclusive dealing, tied selling or market restriction may, with leave of the Tribunal, make an application under section 77.

(3) No application may be made under section 75 or 77 by a person referred to in subsection (1) or (2) more than two years after the practice has ceased.

(4) Any person making an application under section 75 or 77 shall serve the person in respect of whom the order is sought and the Commissioner with a copy of the application for leave.

(5) The Tribunal shall give notice to the Commissioner of its decision on an application for leave pursuant to this section.

(6) Within thirty days of the granting of leave to a person to make an application under section 75 or 77, the Commissioner may become a party to the application but, after thirty days, may do so only at the request of or with leave of the Tribunal.

There are two sections left that I will read quickly:

(7) Where an application is made to a court for an order under section 75 or 77 and the parties agree on the terms of the order and such terms are in accordance with the terms of this Act, whether or not any of the terms could have been imposed by the court under this Part, the order agreed to may be filed with the court for immediate registration.

(8) On being filed under subsection (7), an order shall be registered and, when registered, shall have the same force and effect, and all proceedings may be taken, as if the order had been made by the court.”

This is an amendment in which we recognize the great work done by our colleague from the riding of Ajax—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

There is one motion in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-23.

This motion was reviewed, and the Chair is of the opinion that it meets the criteria stated in the note to Standing Orders 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendment at report stage.

Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted upon by itself.

I will now put Motion No. 1 to the House.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. First, I want to apologize to the hon. member. I had hoped to get consent for the motion that I am about to put a few minutes ago between two speakers but that was not possible so I apologize to the hon. member.

There has been consultation among parties and I believe that if you were to seek it there would be consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding Standing Order 76, the House may consider Bill C-23 at report stage at second reading on Friday, December 7, 2001.

This is for the convenience of members. Instead of doing it Monday, it would be done tomorrow.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with Bill C-24, the organized crime legislation, which is currently before the House, and at least consider the Senate's amendments to Bill C-24.

This will be followed by Bill C-15B, the criminal code amendments, as I announced yesterday to the House leaders of the other parties.

Then, if there is any time remaining today, we will continue with Bill C-27, the nuclear safety bill.

Tomorrow, we hope to pass Bill C-46, the ignition interlock device bill sponsored by the Minister of Justice, at all stages. I thank the leaders of all parties for having consented to move this through all stages before the holidays.

We will then call report stage and second reading of Bill C-23, the competition legislation. If there is any time left tomorrow, we will turn to report stage and third reading of Bill C-43, the technical amendments bill.

On Monday, we will return to the bills I have listed, and those that have not been completed, that is unfinished business from today and tomorrow.

I would remind hon. members that the budget will be presented at 4 p.m. on Monday, of course, and the budget debate, that is the debate on the amendment to the amendment—in the improbable event of some hon. members wishing to propose an amendment to the amendment—would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with division at the end of the day, on Wednesday.

The business scheduled for Thursday and Friday of next week, if the House is sitting, would be Bill C-42.

Committees of the House

[Susan Whelan, Liberal, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act. The committee reports the bill with amendment.

I thank all witnesses, committee members, researchers and everyone for their hard work and co-operation throughout the proceedings with respect to the bill.