I think there's a spectrum of solutions. What I'd like to see from the review of the Competition Act is some deeper thinking on what some of these alternatives could be. This is where my point about stakeholders coming together and finding compromise is really important. We need everyone at the table to sit down and think about how exactly we want to be evaluating anti-competitive conduct.
That's a long way of saying there are lots of potential solutions, but what I'd like to see is our moving more towards a rules-based approach for evaluating anti-competitive conduct.
I don't want to be long-winded, but I will give a quick example. When it comes to evaluating mergers, in Canada you can't say to the Competition Tribunal to please block this merger because it literally creates a monopoly; you need to show that because this merger creates a monopoly, it's going to increase prices. That's just textbook Economics 101. We know that. Why do we need the commissioner of the Competition Bureau to re-invent Econ 101 in front of the Competition Tribunal?
I think integrating things—like if you have a merger to monopoly, it's just blocked outright—is pretty reasonable. That again is more of this rules-based approach to evaluating anti-competitive conduct and its harm. I can see other places where it could also fit in.
I don't have a definitive answer on what I think that would look like today. I think that's for a more open discussion.