Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, and the amendment proposed by the Senate.
As we know, Bill C-23 was made up of three private member's bills. There were some very interesting features. Before the proposed changes included in Bill C-23, only the commissioner of competition could file a complaint before the competition tribunal.
Bill C-23 now provides for a private access that will allow people to directly launch court proceedings, on their own behalf, regarding competition issues. This new provision of the act will apply to four areas: refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tied selling and market restriction.
However, while these changes were interesting ones, they did not revolutionize the way of doing things in Canada when it comes to competition. The provisions of Bill C-23 remain weak, and they do not go to the bottom of the issue of competition in Canada.
In its 2000 election platform, the Bloc Quebecois said, and is still saying, that the Competition Act should be amended to guarantee competitive prices to consumers. This is the basis of the issue of competition.
It is all well and good to allow third parties to argue a case on their own before the Competition Tribunal, but if the Competition Bureau does not have the adequate means to carry out its investigations, what good does it do? We must not circumvent steps. Ensuring truly competitive pricing to consumers must remain the cornerstone of our actions.
For this reason, I had moved a motion in the House that would have reviewed the implementation of section 45 of the Competition Act and reviewed the word unduly. The current wording in this section allows multinational corporations to raise prices, particularly in the case of gas.
Allow me to give an example. On a street with five gas stations, the prices all go up at the same time, and at the same hour. Under the current law, the Competition Bureau cannot launch an investigation based on this observation. There must be written proof of collusion. This is virtually impossible to obtain these days. Unfortunately, Bill C-23 does nothing to correct section 45.
However, I have not lost all hope. The Standing Committee on Industry published a report on April 23, in which it proposed some good amendments to the section. The Minister of Industry should seriously consider these proposals.
The Standing Committee on Industry said the following:
That the Government of Canada create a two-track approach for agreements between competitors. The first track would modify the current criminal provision (section 45) in two ways and allow the criminal justice system to deal with “hard core cartels”, in other words conspiracies that have no compensatory social value.
This would remove the word unduly from the phrase “to lessen, unduly, competition”. As such, horizontal agreements between competitors should not have to limit competition unduly or deliberately in order to be considered a conspiracy against the public interest. Such an amendment would be welcome.
Therefore, I am pleased, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, to support this amendment from the Senate. It is very important, particularly since, from a legal perspective, the French and English versions are often different. As a result, it was important to make this change, and I congratulate the members of the other chamber.
This is also an opportunity to point out how much progress we have made when it comes to competition; however, there remains work to be done. I hope that the minister will take note of this and make amending section 45 a priority for his department.