Thank you for the question.
Yes, that is a limitation of the Competition Bureau's ability to conduct market studies. When we are enforcing the law and doing investigations, we are able to collect the information we need to make decisions. When we do a market study to try to inform government and policy, we do not have that ability to collect data and information. We're working with publicly available information or what people are giving us voluntarily. That clearly limits the depth of the work we can do and the quality of our recommendations.
The solution is the Competition Act. That is an issue that's been talked about for quite some time. I think it's live with the current consultation on the Competition Act. What type of power should the bureau have to do this work? Our respectful submission is that it is very important that we be able to compel information in order to do these types of studies properly and inform government of our findings.