Thank you for being here, and for your comments.
I'll be honest with you, I am perplexed. In the bureau's description, it says that the organization is independent, and I quote:
The Competition Bureau, as an independent law enforcement agency, ensures that Canadian businesses and consumers prosper in a competitive and innovative marketplace.
For years and years, books have been written on the importance of competition, and yet here we are ranking first for our low level of competition.
Our country is enormous; it includes rural regions, diversity, minorities and new developments, but these are not criteria to be considered. Saying that the only question to be considered is the economic one constitutes a problem, I think.
I don't know about you, but I was saying to my colleague that we were elected to make changes and come up with recommendations to improve things. So, what happened over the past 50 years? No one else talked about it? These criteria that are important in Canadian society were always there and things have not changed that much. I find this quite problematical.
I would like to know what criteria and best practices the other countries use, as opposed to us, to ensure competition and not find themselves at the top of the list, but rather in 17th or 21st place among the list of countries with low levels of competition. Help me to understand.