Industry committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Vass Bednar. I'm the executive director of McMaster University's new master of public policy in digital society program. As I'm the co-author of a forthcoming white paper on the state of competition policy in Canada, I'm going to focus my rem

Industry committee  Recently there's been more writing about exploring whether the Competition Bureau needs the capacity to be able to conduct market studies. Authorities in the U.S. can compel particular information from businesses in order to keep pace with trends in the sector and then better und

Industry committee  It strikes me that competition policy is inherently retroactive. We evaluate mergers after they happen. Sometimes we're going back in time, and what I worry about, since we're not being thoughtful about the digital economy and the implications of data and consumer data held by co

Industry committee  Of course. Just to start, I'll say that I echo the previous comments. Economist Robin Shaban is my collaborator on the white paper that I mentioned is coming up. As such, I do defer to her criticism and observations, and I think it would be smart, and it feels inevitable for us,

Industry committee  We've certainly seen the comparative under-resourcing of our own Competition Bureau when it's put in that international context. I can't speak to the bureau having to pick and choose where to enforce. However, I can also say that I believe that a review of the Competition Act was

Industry committee  You know, my understanding historically is that the policy function of the Competition Bureau was minimized in about 2011. I can follow up on this. Yes, in terms of their intellectual independence, it's very difficult. I believe there was concern expressed that having the govern

Industry committee  I've focused my testimony on the Competition Act specifically. I don't view the act as a form of red tape. It's kind of the guidance and guardrail to protect against anti-competitive behaviour. If I could, I'll pick up on something Mr. Kotak shared about the pandemic and going d

Industry committee  My big observation for the competition environment with telecommunications is just recognizing that we allow providers to compete on both the infrastructure and the services, and this kind of structural function contributes to a lot of the challenges that have been documented. I

Industry committee  Yes, the paper does conclude by identifying about 10 or 11 areas of opportunity for us to start to reconsider. We're hoping it's a catalyst to more conversations. We don't want to be too prescriptive in proposing something as distinct as an amendment quite yet, but we do look for

Industry committee  Yes, like thinking of the legislation as a time machine.... Right now, the Competition Bureau has this ability to issue something called an “advance ruling certificate”. It's an ARC for mergers. This commits the bureau to never reviewing a merger again after it's already been rev

Industry committee  I'll do my best. I wish I had a little bit more detail. This is kind of a factoid that's come up in some of my background conversations with a range of experts and scholars. My understanding is that maybe I need to go back and take a look and go on LinkedIn and count how many pol

Industry committee  Sure. It's a common thread. I also lamented that lack of scholarship, but of course, there is scholarship, and that's a common criticism of how we've structured our Competition Bureau. Other competition authorities have more independence. They have, of course, more power and mor

Industry committee  I think so. This is something I'm learning more about. My appreciation and understanding of it is not sophisticated, but I think you're quite savvy to link that up. Such a conversation should be part and parcel of moving ahead with reviewing the Competition Act.

Industry committee  Yes, I would agree with that characterization. I would also offer that it has to operate that way because (a), we're not empowering our bureau and (b), we're not really being thoughtful about the legislation that governs the competition environment and what the bureau can do, suc

Industry committee  I do think we should. That case is interesting when you think about the very high burden of proof that we have under the Competition Act for abusive dominance. A challenge in our digital age is establishing that proof. What was interesting about those conversations, from what I