Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
It is pleasure to be here today to talk about my appointment as Chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
When we appeared before you last week, we jumped right into the issues surrounding the Canadian Television Fund and so I did not have an opportunity to properly introduce myself.
I was born and raised in Germany and came to Canada when I was 17. I have a bachelor of arts from Carleton University and a bachelor of laws from Queen's University. I joined the public service in 1973 and since then I have had a number of positions in the public service. In 2003 I was appointed a justice of the Federal Court of Canada, a position I resigned to take this position.
On the Federal Court, I heard many interesting legal disputes involving various industries and areas. I handed down decisions on cases involving immigration and refugee law, intellectual property, particularly copyright, private law and administrative law.
Before that, I had the privilege of serving as Commissioner of Competition and head of the Competition Bureau for a period of seven years. During that time, I was responsible for the enforcement of the Competition Act, as well as championing the promotion of competition in every field of policy-making. This involved, among other things, reviewing proposed mergers between companies, including banks, airlines, and broadcasting companies; and investigating allegations of anti-competitive behaviour, such as price-fixing and deceptive marketing practices.
The Competition Bureau and the CRTC have a history of working together, given that their roles in certain areas are complementary. For instance, the bureau is a frequent intervenor before the CRTC on matters related to competition, and both organizations have the authority to review and approve certain transactions. In fact, during my term as Commissioner of Competition, an interface agreement was drafted to clarify the organization's respective areas of responsibility.
My predecessor, Françoise Bertrand, and I both got involved personally in the interface agreement and are very proud that we managed to lay down the lines of interacting with each other. Some parallels can be drawn between my role and my past experience as a judge and the Commissioner of Competition. The common thread is the importance of maintaining impartiality and objectivity in seeking out the information required to make good decisions.
I have also had the opportunity to be involved in some challenges facing our country from an international perspective. A few years ago, for example, there was a need identified by organizations that we had to bring the competition regimes around the world together. Competition is a bit of the flavour of the day, and there was a danger that everybody was going a different way.
We have created something called the International Competition Network, which brought all the competition agencies and the practitioners from the world together to have the best minds in public and private employed in competition in laying out how competition regimes should perform and on what principles it should work. I had the privilege of being the chairman of that network. It's now in its seventh year. It's holding its conference in Russia this year.
I hope that this brief outline of my qualifications has provided you with a good idea of my experience and depth of expertise in commercial and competition law, both in a national and international context. I have been proud to serve Canadians in my various capacities, and I'm honoured to have been appointed as Chairman of the CRTC at such an important moment in its history.
I trust my comments have been useful. I will be pleased to answer any questions you have.