Industry committee  I think I actually will be making the opening statement, Chair.

Industry committee  Great. Thank you very much, Chair My name is Josephine Palumbo. I am the deputy commissioner of the deceptive marketing practices directorate at the Competition Bureau. I am joined by my colleague Morgan Currie, associate deputy commissioner of the deceptive marketing practices

Industry committee  First of all, CASL amended our act in a couple of ways. Technologically neutral language was implemented within certain of our definitions. Amendments allowed us to be more targeted in terms of our enforcement in the electronic marketplace. CASL represents evolution, not revoluti

Industry committee  Let me begin by saying that there is the memorandum of understanding between the three agencies. That was implemented as a way for us to share information and in order for each of these different agencies, which have different objectives in terms of our mandate, to share informat

Industry committee  The Competition Bureau has very strong relations with its international counterparts. We have 20 international instruments with about 50 different jurisdictions. Some of those jurisdictions have consumer protection remedies and requirements within them. We work very, very closely

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Let me start off by saying that administrative monetary penalties are not punitive in nature. They're not there to punish. We associate deterrence with being punitive, and this is not what administrative monetary penalties are about. They are about fostering compliance, encouragi

Industry committee  It's interesting you might ask. We have a pretty good track record on repeat offenders. On the record, we currently have one case, the Matthew Hovila case. The individual had agreed to a consent agreement, under the Competition Act, and a few years later decided to repeat the con

Industry committee  Again, that's one example—

Industry committee  —out of a large number of consent agreements.

Industry committee  Amazon is a company that crosses the Canadian border. That would be one example of extra-jurisdictional reach. Obviously, the law confines us to our Canadian borders.

Industry committee  We continue to make the most of our resources. We take stock of our enforcement experience. We review evolving trends in international best practices to ensure our enforcement actions remain modern and relevant. Each investigation is different. The costs vary from one case to ano

Industry committee  It depends. If you look at Hertz, for example, there were no costs levied against Hertz and Dollar Thrifty. But we weren't even on inquiry, at that point. The company came in, and we negotiated a resolution. They wanted to co-operate. We want to achieve compliance. Fundamentally,

Industry committee  Well, I believe our record speaks for itself, quite frankly. I've given you some examples of consent agreements. The resolutions have yielded $26 million in administrative monetary penalties, $25 million in consumer restitution, and $1.5 million paid to charities. That's—

Industry committee  I think we're doing a fairly good job in what we have and in the legislation that we have before us. In the Volkswagen matter, we resolved the case as well with respect to the 2.0-litre engines—$15 million in administrative monetary penalties and $2.1 billion in restitution to Ca