I am the executive director of CAMP, a Canadian think tank dedicated to addressing issues caused by monopoly power in Canada.
This is an exciting time for competition policy in Canada, and CAMP is glad to see parties across Parliament putting forward plans to strengthen Canada’s competition law and protect affordability for Canadians.
Bill C-56 is an important investment in the future of competition in Canada, and CAMP is happy to support it.
By removing the efficiencies defence, giving the commissioner of competition the power to conduct market studies and expanding the scope of enforcement against anti-competitive agreements, Bill C-56 makes material positive contributions to the Competition Act.
I'll be frank. I don't believe that these changes will make groceries more affordable tomorrow. The situation today is the result of decades of thinking, at the heart of the Competition Act, that has supported consolidation and reduced competition at the expense of Canadians. The work to reverse that thinking will take time. As I mentioned, we see these proposed changes as investments that will pay off for Canadians in the coming months, years and decades, and in sectors well beyond grocery.
That being said, within the current scope of Bill C-56, we would like to propose two changes to strengthen the bill so that it might better serve Canadians.
First, the commissioner of competition should have the independent authority to conduct market studies without the direction of the minister. Bill C-56 provides appropriate checks and limits on the commissioner's use of the market study power and, as such, independent study authority should be granted to preserve the agency's independence.
Second, powers related to anti-competitive agreements should be further strengthened to ensure meaningful enforcement. This means adding the ability to pursue past agreements and penalties for those who engage in these agreements, the absence of which currently renders the provision ineffective.
With these changes, Bill C-56 will deliver more benefits to Canadians sooner, but looking beyond Bill C-56, more comprehensive change is still needed to the Competition Act to ensure competitive markets for Canadians going forward. Even with the removal of the efficiencies defence, Canadians will not be fully protected from further consolidation in important markets. Future reform should introduce presumptions against mergers in already concentrated markets, banning them outright in highly concentrated ones. It should also set the standard for remedies to harmful mergers at preserving or improving competition, not making things worse at a more acceptable pace.
For markets already characterized by a small number of players, we need stronger provisions to ensure that any dominance isn’t abused at the expense of Canadian businesses, workers and consumers. Today, abuse of dominance cases are few and far between and can take years to investigate. Expanding the scope of the provision and streamlining its enforcement should be a key priority.
Finally, the enforcement of the Competition Act should be more transparent and decentralized. The Competition Bureau has made important strides in communicating how it works to Canadians, but it is still very much a black box and we fall short of the transparency of peer jurisdictions like the United Kingdom. Canada's competition law enforcement is also quite centralized, with the Competition Bureau responsible for all markets across our $2-trillion economy. By allowing private parties to seek damages under the Competition Act, Canada will have more eyes on the ground to identify and address unfair methods of competition going forward.
Today, with Bill C-56, I think this committee has an opportunity to make a material improvement toward more robust competition law, but after Bill C-56, the priority should be to finish that work with more comprehensive reform of the law that Canadians depend on to protect competition and affordability.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to your questions.