Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Please allow me to take a few seconds to acknowledge and thank all the witnesses for being here today to participate in this very interesting analysis.
I'll start with you, Mr. Ross. I'd like to talk about the 60% threshold related to combined market share. It seems to me that forcing competition authorities to prevent a merger or acquisition that would result in a combined market share of 60% or more would actually take away tools from the Competition Bureau to make a real assessment of the economic effects of a merger or acquisition, for example.
Last week, I asked Mr. Singh if he had any examples of mergers or acquisitions that had led to a combined market share of over 60% and had been detrimental to consumers. Clearly, Mr. Singh had done a poor job on his bill, since he had no examples to provide to me.
For my part, I have some questions, particularly about idle assets. There are assets for which we can allow mergers and acquisitions so that there is ultimately only one player in a market, without which there would probably be none, because we need to achieve an economy of scale. I know this has already happened in the case of cinemas, for example.
Also, I raised the question of regional quasi-monopolies. Think of grocery or hardware stores in remote areas, which can only survive if they have no competitors. This is what we call a natural monopoly.
On the other hand, I wonder how market share is defined. Canada is a country that goes from coast to coast and back again. Some companies are regional, while others are pan‑Canadian.
So I'm wondering, and I'm asking you, ultimately, if preventing mergers and acquisitions that would result in a combined market share of 60% or more might not cause detrimental effects for consumers, particularly those in remote communities?