I'll go in the order you asked your questions.
In the first one, you asked about what kinds of complaints we get when prices increase and there is a price spike. I think the most common complaint we get in those situations is basically a complaint that prices have increased and they think something's going on in the marketplace. It is the most basic complaint: prices are high and consumers don't know why. What we do in that situation is look at the market and try to determine what's going on in the market that either could explain or could not explain the price spike. In terms of gasoline and the types of complaints, that's what we look at in the initial step.
You asked also whether we need a complaint to start an investigation. The commissioner has the ability to initiate an investigation or an inquiry in a number of different methods. Usually, in the vast majority of cases, it is through a complaint. She does have the ability as well to investigate issues on her own if she identifies a concern in the marketplace or through reading the newspapers or a report on the Internet. She has the ability to start asking questions and investigate. The minister also has the ability to direct the commissioner to initiate an inquiry.
How we conduct our inquiry.... You asked a question about our powers and how our investigations are conducted. It really breaks down into four components. On the initial complaint, the initial concern that's raised either by us or by a complainant, we look at the situation, we examine the complaint, and we try to determine at the first step whether the issue that's being raised is something the Competition Act can address. Is there legislation or are there sections of the act that the conduct would apply to?
If the answer to that is yes, we'll dig a bit deeper. We'll start asking questions of the complainant, try to understand what's going on in the marketplace, do research on the Internet, potentially talk to other players in the marketplace to better understand the dynamics and what's going on.
After that preliminary step, if we feel there are serious concerns or grounds to believe that the act has been potentially violated, we have the ability to recommend to the commissioner, and the commissioner can follow this to initiate a formal inquiry to dig deeper and to determine the facts of the situation.
By virtue of going on inquiry, she has access at that point to a variety of what we call statutory investigative tools. She has the ability to subpoena documents, subpoena witness statements, and subpoena written responses, if you like. In the case of criminal investigations, she has the ability to ask the court—and again for subpoenaing documents we do need permission from the court—for the ability to search businesses, what we call search warrants.
The final step of that investigation is that if we feel there is conduct that needs to be addressed, we will in most cases talk to the targets of our inquiry and seek remedy at that point. And in the cases where we are not able to secure a remedy we think is necessary, we'll address our matter to the tribunal in the case of civil matters or to the criminal courts.