My second confession is that I do remember 1971, but it's very hazy, very hazy.
Mr. Beaulieu, clause 236 of Bill C‑59 adds a new provision, as you've pointed out, to the deceptive marketing provisions of the Competition Act to help address certain types of false or misleading environmental claims. It specifies that claims about a product's benefit for protecting the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological effects of climate change must be based on an adequate and proper test, and that the burden of proof would fall on the person making the representation, thereby making it a type of reverse-onus provision. However, Canada's commissioner of competition, Matthew Boswell, in a letter to this committee in March, said this:
The reality is that a significant portion of the greenwashing complaints the Bureau receives do not involve claims about products, but rather more general or forward-looking environmental claims about a business or brand [such as] being “net-zero”...by 2030.... These claims are not reverse onus, and it can be challenging for the Bureau to prove that they are false or misleading in a material respect.
Do you agree that more general or forward-looking environmental claims about a business or brand should also be subject to the reverse-onus test?