Thank you for your question and your introductory comments in French, Mr. Weiler. I will answer first in French and then in English.
The last serious attempt to reform the Competition Act was in 1986. That was nearly four decades ago, so I think a major reform of the law is long overdue.
We took the first step in that direction in February 2022, through the budget.
We then introduced in November this very broad consultation.
I must say to colleagues who are part of this committee that we should take pride in this being a government and a Parliament that listens to people. We conducted a market study or, let's say, consultation for almost two years looking at the different aspects. People would agree, particularly in the grocery sector.... That's why you see that these three key amendments are really focused. It's because it's a complex industry and an unregulated industry, but one, I would say, that affects Canadians in their daily lives. We have seen what types of things would make the most sense.
To me, it is shocking to think that, in 2023, in a G7 country, the competition authority would not have subpoena powers when it does market studies. Members of this committee should all be cheering when we receive royal assent, because it's pretty unique, if you think about it, that you would have a body there to look at competition that does not have subpoena powers. We are probably one of the very few countries in the world that I can think of that has an authority that cannot seek information or documents.
We've seen how this could be harmful, because in the last study that was done on the food sector, as I said in my opening remarks, we saw various degrees of co-operation with this entity. Think about that. This entity is there to inform Canadians, government and Parliament, so for it not to be able to have a full understanding of the market is pretty concerning to me.
Even that is going to help a lot, because in this industry or others.... Think about it. There are so many other industries for which we may want to do market studies to better understand what the competitive dynamic is, why we are where we are, why the prices are what they are and what the issues around competition are.
I'll give you a small example. One of the things I'm trying to do is bring another grocer into the country to disrupt the market. It's what they call a deep discounter. That's the term they use in the industry. When I talked to the U.S. grocers, one of the reasons they didn't come to Canada—believe it or not, it's not the market—was the restrictive covenant in leases. They said, “Minister, we looked at Canada but, believe it or not, even as big as we are, it was extremely difficult to find a place we could lease because of all these restrictive covenants in leases.” I got that from some of the big grocers in the U.S.
I said, “Wow. Imagine that.” If Canadians knew that.... Now potentially—I'm not saying it's a done deal—you have grocers that may want to come to Canada, and one of the problems they have is leasing premises because of what are called land control provisions basically preventing them from being able to rent premises so that they can offer an alternative to consumers.
These kinds of measures are really down-to-earth and are going to help Canadians, and they'll certainly bring more competition to our country.