Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll start with our online guests first to get them involved in the conversation, Mr. Clement first and then Ms. Bednar.
Mr. Clement, you mentioned the number of meetings, 223 meetings, being with the business sector. One of the things brought up that I think is an interesting question was by Mr. Gaheer, and it was on the algorithms. I'm wondering, with only focusing consultations with the companies.... We've seen at this committee in the past, whether it be gas pricing, where there's vertical integration in the industry, where there's no real competition because refining is all done by a select group of corporations. In fact, you have some brand name gas that has basically moved from market to market. We've seen as well, too, specifically bread price fixing. We've also had the Competition Bureau in on that. We've even seen the CEOs admit to us they didn't even have to collude to get rid of hero pay for grocery store retailer staff. They got rid of it all on the same day. Miraculously they came to the same conclusion.
The question I have specifically is: Is there a potential, I guess through the private sector, to create algorithms that actually also reduce further competition? You don't even have to have collusion if you have a lack of competition, which we have in many markets in Canada.
I'll start with Mr. Clement on the concerns about more algorithms being used to define the Canadian marketplace against consumers.