Canadian Heritage committee  My name is Julien Brazeau. I am the associate deputy commissioner, competition promotion branch, with the Competition bureau. I'm joined to my right by my colleague Ms. Jeanne Pratt who is the senior deputy commissioner, mergers and monopolistic practices with the Competition Bur

Canadian Heritage committee  As we mentioned previously, when we study a specific market, we do so on a case-by-case basis. We do not do comparative studies. We do not study a sector for a specific period. We have no monitoring activities in a particular sector. For us, it really depends on the facts, on a s

Canadian Heritage committee  With the issue of regulation, I think you've pointed to Netflix and others as not being regulated the same way in Canada as it is in other countries. That is a concern that we have heard in the past. I would say that within the four corners of our act that's not a consideration t

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon. As you have mentioned, my name is Julien Brazeau. I am associate deputy commissioner at the Competition Bureau, and I'm joined by my colleague, Anthony Durocher, who is deputy commissioner of the mergers and monopolistic practices bran

Canadian Heritage committee  From a competition perspective, obviously, the more competitors that are in the marketplace, usually the better it is, because that leads to greater product choice, lower prices, and things like that. As I said, we do take a look at concentration, but at the same time, just the

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll jump in, and then I'll let Anthony speak to the specific criteria that we look at in the context of a merger. Absolutely, we will look at the level of concentration in a given market and what impact that might have. To the extent that we're looking at a transaction, we wil

Canadian Heritage committee  I know the focus, obviously, is on this issue of diversity of voices. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, looking at the issue of diversity of voices traditionally falls outside the scope of the factors that the bureau looks at, which are advertising rates, readership, price an

Canadian Heritage committee  I understand that. I think just with regard to that issue of diversity of voices and whether the bureau should opine on it and whether that power should lie with the bureau, the bureau definitely enforces the act that it is given. Obviously we report through the Department of Inn

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll let Anthony talk a bit more about how we define product markets and what we take a look at, but we don't actively, I would say, monitor specific industries, because our law is general application law. We take a look at cases when they come through the door and we do a thorou

Canadian Heritage committee  We certainly don't regulate Facebook. The bureau itself is not a regulator, nor does it have any adjudicative powers. That being said, I agree that the industry is evolving quickly. To the extent that there is a transaction to be proposed in this sector, we would definitely look

Canadian Heritage committee  Absent an actual transaction or specific anti-competitive conduct by the parties, the bureau wouldn't go about regulating Facebook in terms of its activities. Again, we're not a regulator of businesses. We enforce the Competition Act to ensure that businesses don't engage in anti

Canadian Heritage committee  We will certainly look at the impact on competition.

Canadian Heritage committee  The Competition Act applies to all organizations that have activities in Canada. As long as Facebook, Google or any other organization has activities in Canada or has an impact on competition in a market, we will certainly look into it.

Canadian Heritage committee  First, I will briefly answer your first question, and afterwards I will ask Mr. Durocher to add his comments. Then we can answer the second question. As for the authorities in the world who have studied the issue of Google's apparent monopoly on information, many countries have

Canadian Heritage committee  As to Postmedia/Sun Media, I would have to look at the file. We have certainly looked into certain digital products. As part of that analysis, we determined that the products complemented each other rather than competed with each other.