Good morning. Thank you to the chair and to this committee for the opportunity to appear.
We haven't quite met before. You've heard that my name is Vass Bednar and that I am the executive director of McMaster University's MPP in digital society program, where I am also an adjunct professor of political science. I actively participate in Canada's policy ecosystem as an Action Canada fellow, a Public Policy Forum fellow and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, known as CIGI.
In addition to my leadership role at McMaster, I'm one of the country's most vocal advocates for competition modernization. I have engaged Canadians on the merits and need for competition reform in modest but meaningful ways through opinion editorials in The Globe and Mail, the National Post, collaborative research published by McGill University and commissioned by ISED, various podcast inerviews and my newsletter, which has a funny name, “Regs to Riches”.
Due to that general focus on competition in Canada and my own intellectual anchoring in digital policy issues, I am going to focus my brief remarks on the amendments that pertain to the Competition Act.
As you know, that act was last updated modestly after the “Compete to Win” report that was initiated in 2008, and 2008 is the same year that Apple's App Store launched. It's when Uber and Airbnb were founded, and later Slack, Venmo, and so many more. In many ways, that year is a hinge of sorts for the acceleration of the digital economy.
There are plenty of good reasons to support competition modernization beyond the passage of time. As an Ipsos poll from earlier this year highlighted, “Most Canadians say we need more competition as it's too easy for big business to take advantage of consumers”. It's 88%.
As noted in President Biden's historic executive order on competition from last spring, economists find that as competition declines, productivity growth slows, business investment and innovation decline, and income, wealth and racial inequality widen.
Competition is a key catalyst of productivity. It attracts investment, stimulates the creation of high-skilled jobs, and fuels exports of Canadian products, services and ideas.
I recently appeared before your colleagues at INDU to discuss these proposed changes to the Competition Act in greater detail. During that meeting, I expressed support for the amendments because they clearly serve the public interest at a time when Canadians are under intense economic pressure. They will improve the enforcement of the current act. They were clearly foreshadowed in a February press release from the minister. They are aligned with analysis from the Competition Bureau, and they've been discussed at length in the public domain.
I also acknowledge that, while the Budget Implementation Act is an imperfect democratic tool, policy windows of opportunity are scarce and must be seized.
Another reason for my general support is that these proposed amendments start to bring Canada in line with best practices in peer jurisdictions. It also sends a good signal that we are moving, however slowly, in the right direction, especially on making references to artifacts of the digital economy. I want to be clear here. In general, we're playing catch-up in Canada except on wage-fixing, where no one jurisdiction is really ahead or has figured out the optimal implementation of that policy goal.
Going forward, you should or could strike a panel of Canadian academics that focuses on competition issues as your digital policy task force. I would like to encourage this committee to consider the merits of an all-of-government approach to digital regulation that can complement competition reform efforts and help us achieve a truly interoperable policy environment. This is something I've written about.
These changes are a down payment on competition reform in Canada, modernization that is long overdue. They are not perfect, but no policy choice is. As I joked on Twitter, where honestly I spend a lot of my time on the Internet nowadays, we don't write the law in stone anymore, and that's a good thing. I see no reason to treat this suite of legislative changes as if it cannot be further refined and improved as we go forward. In fact, perhaps we can review the Competition Act every five years, as we do the Bank Act, to keep it fresh, flexible and responsive.
While I am not entirely sure if this is relevant, I also want to note that, in last year's federal election, it was the Conservative platform that spoke most explicitly to competition reform. It acknowledged that we need to ensure a level playing field for Canadian businesses. It promised harsher penalties for executives and companies that fix prices or abuse their dominant positions. The platform also supported workers, noting that mergers that reduce competition and lead to layoffs and higher prices will be rejected. These were compelling proposals that I was excited to read.
To conclude, I'd like to thank everyone responsible for drafting the language that we've read in the budget implementation act and for supporting these important, initial improvements to the Competition Act.
I am looking forward to continuing to engage on these issues and to further discussion.
Thank you very much.