Thank you, Mr. Chair,
I'm just taking a look at section 10 in the actual Competition Act. It says under the heading “Inquiry by Commissioner”, “The Commissioner shall (a) on application made under section 9”, and it gives paragraphs (b) and (c). It gives three different areas where the commissioner can “cause an inquiry to be made into all such matters as the Commissioner considers necessary to inquire into with the view of determining the facts”.
Paragraph 10(1)(a) is an “application made under section 9”, which refers to any six persons resident in Canada who have a concern.
The concerns are similar to paragraph 10(1)(b), which is what we're changing: “whenever the Commissioner has reason to believe that (i) a person has contravened an order made pursuant to section 32, 33 or 34, or Part VII.1 or Part VIII”.
As I look at that, part VII.1 talks about deceptive marketing practices. Part VIII talks about matters reviewable by the tribunal and refers to restrictive trade practices, refusal to deal, tied selling, abuse of dominant position, and so on. That's number one.
Subparagraph 10(1)(b)(ii) says: “grounds exist for the making of an order under Part VII.1 or Part VIII”.
Subparagraph 10(1)(b)(iii) says: “an offence under Part VI or VII has been or is about to be committed, or”.
Now we're adding this fourth one. This is what strikes me as kind of odd. The fourth one, this new one, is very different from the others. The others seem to actually refer to something, some criteria or some condition, that has to exist for the commissioner to make that inquiry. I'll quote: “Grounds exist for the making of an inquiry into an entire industry sector”.
One of the things that strikes me is that the grounds are not actually defined here. In subparagraph 10(1)(b)(ii), “grounds exist for the making of an order under Part VII.1 or Part VIII”. There is a definition of those grounds. It tells you what grounds are.
What are the grounds here? I don't understand when I'm looking at this what the grounds would actually even refer to.