Mr. Chair, I'll try to address the honourable member's question on concentration.
We do two things that affect, or could affect or be relevant to, concentration. The first thing is that we review mergers. Those that would lead to unacceptably high levels of concentration we challenge or adjust, pursuant to our legislation, to make sure that the excessive part of the concentration is divested to another hand.
It is true that under our act—under our legislation and guidelines—the safe harbour is at 35%. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that 35% really means there can be three companies in the sector. That is our legislation, and it's not that different from legislation around the world for certain sectors. Within that level, we enforce the act rigorously. We would have a very close look—and a strong look—at companies that would seek to get 50% or 60% of a market.
I'll use an example from the agricultural space. We spent 10 years reviewing, challenging, and getting divestitures in the grain handling industry, going back to 2001, when we put some severe restrictions on the UGG/Agricore merger. We wanted a bunch of prairie elevators—the good ones too, not the garbage ones or the old ones, but the high throughput new elevators—divested into another company's hands. And we wanted the best terminal in Vancouver divested, and it ultimately went to another competitor.
So we're aware of those issues, and we apply the merger laws rigorously in this sector.
I'll speak to one other point. The second thing that could obviously affect concentration is the abuse of dominance provision. That's when a company does become dominant or large—and again, that 35% is in our guidelines. When a company attains more than 35% of a given market, be it the fertilizer, the grain, or the slaughter industry, then certain things they might do that hurt their competitors, or stymie competition, we will take a close look at as well. And we do that.
Obviously those are two very important things we do.
The final thing, and perhaps one of the most important things we do, is that we make sure there are no agreements among competitors. I think, Mr. Chair, there was some reference to the potential of that happening. We have zero tolerance for that. It's a criminal offence: you go to jail. We have a number of ongoing investigations.
Over the years, I have gathered a list of some 100 cases that we have resolved and that involved cartels. I believe it's on our website. Many of them touched on the farm industry. I'll just mention a few. Lysine is a major ingredient that takes fat out of chickens and hogs, and it's used extensively in the rearing of hogs and chickens. That was subject to an international cartel. We stopped that. And the vitamins that were fed to animals, the bulk vitamins, were from a $1 billion cartel. We stopped that and imposed heavy fines. So when we're aware of these anti-competitive situations, we will look at them.
Right now we're picking up a number of complaints about price differences between the U.S. and Canada—and there are price differences. Let me just tell you about some of the sectors where we are getting price differences: first of all, TVs; books; gasoline; food products of all types, such as chicken, poultry, dairy products, vegetables; barbecues; electronics; cars; ATVs; and boats. In fact, the price of virtually every product is lower in the U.S. This has been the result of an 18% appreciation of the Canadian dollar since August. Prices are moderating, and if there is any evidence—any evidence—that these price differences between Canada and the U.S. are due to a conspiracy, then we'd certainly look at that. As every product in the U.S. is now cheaper than it is in Canada—since August—I find it a little hard to believe that every product is subject to price fixing and that we don't know about it. But there is the remote possibility that people are taking advantage of these exchange rate differentials. If that's the case, we will look into it. And we are looking into certain cases where there is evidence.