Sure. First, on the new powers of the commissioner, I may have misunderstood, but I believe the representatives of the Competition Bureau yesterday were referring to the greater clarity that now exists under the criminal conspiracy provision. First of all, the language is very clear about the conduct that is a criminal offence; and secondly, the requirement that there be an impact on the market in order for there to be a successful prosecution has been eliminated. So automatically illegal agreements are anti-competitive, criminal in nature, and as soon as the agreement is established, that's the end of the story, the parties are guilty.
I think the reference was that where there may have been more difficulty to address the types of issues being alluded to, perhaps in the oil industry...or that is maybe the underlying reason there's a desire to do further inquiry into the market, to find out if there are illegal agreements to restrain pricing. The point is, to the extent that anything like that would exist, it is now much easier for the Competition Bureau to encourage the prosecution of those offences because they're much easier to prove.
Secondly, with respect to other jurisdictions, it's true that other jurisdictions do have—through their competition authorities, in some cases—the ability to undertake market research inquiries. But in Canada I think we need to recognize that outside of the Competition Act there is the Inquiries Act, and there is the International Trade Tribunal that can undertake inquiries.
More importantly, I think we need to think about Canada as being somewhat unique. We have taken a very clear position in the Competition Act on what we think are the enforcement rights and enforcement role of the Commissioner of Competition.
We also have a somewhat unique country. We have a vast geography, with a relatively low density of population. Because of that, we don't necessarily have the same level of competition as perhaps the United States, which is much more densely populated. In some cases we need to tolerate higher concentrations within certain industries because we can't support as many competitors in certain industries. So I think we need to be a bit more cautious in thinking about looking at pricing in the market or the number of competitors in the market.