Finance committee  Okay. To the second part of your question, could we have afforded not to, the answer is, no, we could not have afforded not to. Supporting people, supporting employment, supporting businesses to get through this crisis, one that we haven't faced in 100 years or potentially ever, would not have happened in a way that has been—I hesitate to use this word—as smooth....

Industry committee  Resources are number one, and it's great that that has been accomplished. The second is to reverse that 2009 change and reinsert the word “purchase” so that something like wage-fixing can be investigated and is considered to be illegal. Another one is to develop those guidelines to investigate the effect of mergers and acquisitions on workers.

Industry committee  That's something I can do a lot more research on, absolutely. The one that is front and centre for us at Unifor is looking at this pandemic pay cut where all three of the grocery giants cut pandemic pay on the same day and the Competition Bureau came back and said it couldn't investigate because of that change.

Industry committee  Our recommendations for now are all about taking a look at what the administrative penalties are and assessing what might be a better way. Could it be something like a percentage of revenue instead of a straight $10-million penalty, which for a large corporation is simply the cost of doing business?

Industry committee  I'll just reiterate that we need as many tools in the tool box as possible to make sure that these types of mergers and acquisitions don't negatively affect the labour market. Collective bargaining is one extremely important tool, and the use of the Competition Act in order to make sure that the merger doesn't have that negative affect is another important tool.

Industry committee  Yes. In general, what happens is that as long as a company can prove it will experience more savings or additional profit than the equal or value of the damage that would be done to the Canadian economy through that anti-competitive behaviour, then automatically the merger is approved.

Industry committee  Yes, absolutely, and it happens in other areas as well. We're currently researching the Shaw and Rogers merger, looking at what monopsony power might be occurring in that industry, how we might be able to countervail that with the tools we have, and why we would not increase the tools we have in our tool box.

Industry committee  My understanding of what happens in the U.S. is that they are 100% able to investigate the effects of mergers, acquisitions and other anti-competitive behaviour on the labour market. They consider things like wage fixing to be anti-competitive behaviour, which means workers are protected from some of the egregious things that can happen when companies collude.

Industry committee  What I have done in my research is read what the most recent statement was by the Competition Bureau. Because of that change, they were unable to investigate the accusations of collusion. Exactly what the rationale was back in 2009, I'm not aware of. I'm aware of the results of that rationale and the effect that that's had on our members.

Industry committee  Good morning, and thank you. My name is Kaylie Tiessen. I'm an economist and policy analyst. I work in the research department at Unifor. Unifor represents 315,000 members across the country, including thousands who have been affected by decisions made by the Competition Bureau, even just in the last few years.

Industry committee  Yes, absolutely. We have training programs connected with the shipbuilding sector specifically and other trade groups to get women in trades and indigenous people in trades. It's to make workplaces more welcoming for people who have been traditionally excluded because they have faced discrimination.

Industry committee  I can take that question. Jerry must have been kicked out. Our members pay dues to the union. The union fights for all sorts of things, including better training. In the aerospace sector, we're always talking about improved and increased training for the sector so that we're investing in the workers of the future.

Industry committee  I think Jerry had to step out, but I can answer that.

Industry committee  I'm Kaylie Tiessen. I work in the research department at Unifor, supporting the sector. We have been vocal on this issue for nearly a year now, including talking about the need for any support to flow to workers. It has to be focused on healthy social outcomes that ensure good jobs are continued.

Industry committee  We've put on the table the need to make sure benefits—exactly your wording—flow to workers in terms of keeping wages, benefits, working conditions, limit executive bonuses, and make sure that workers are gaining back what they've lost before there's this explosion in shareholder value, like what happened after the restructuring in 2009 at other airlines, for example.