Information & Ethics committee  With respect to the national information sharing system between the three partner organizations, I would just like to say that the Bureau is starting its investigations and must maintain the confidentiality of those investigations. Under the Competition Act we are obligated by l

Information & Ethics committee  Again, I am not here to speak about the collection of personal information and privacy rights. I am here to talk about the Competition Bureau: what we do and what our mandate requires us to do. We enforce our act. We detect, deter, and investigate false and misleading representat

Information & Ethics committee  I'll just pick up on the question you asked about children. While the Competition Act doesn't carve out the subject of children per se, when we investigate, we are looking at conduct that is directed toward the public, and obviously children are part of the public. As well, when

Information & Ethics committee  In my context I can't comment on the appropriateness of the power for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, but I can certainly say that within the Competition Bureau framework the administrative monetary penalty regime is working quite well. It is effective at achieving compli

Information & Ethics committee  As I said in my opening remarks, administrative monetary penalties are there to promote compliance with the law, to act as a disincentive to targets of our investigations, and to not continue to violate our legislation. Where do they go? They're not punitive; they are remedial.

Information & Ethics committee  On that point, if you look at our track record on consent agreements, which become court orders, they have been respected. We have only one case on record, the Matthew Hovila case, where we had a subsequent breach of a consent order, but that's a rarity. They actually have a very

Information & Ethics committee  Consent agreements—they become orders of the tribunal—are negotiated settlements between the commissioner and the targets of our investigations. We assess the evidence in each case, and within the Competition Act we have criminal and civil provisions. For example, where we have c

Information & Ethics committee  Investigations are a very important part of the Competition Bureau's work. With respect to complaints filed under the Competition Act, we first look at the information to determine whether it raises a problem under the act. Complaints are a big part of what we do at the Competit

Information & Ethics committee  From my perspective, again, I'm not in a position to comment on the appropriateness of the power for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, but I can say that the framework that's in place within the Competition Bureau mandate is quite effective. From the bureau's perspective,

Information & Ethics committee  My only comment with respect to the Competition Bureau is that many of the markets we deal with are global in scale. The bureau co-operates regularly with its international counterparts, the United States and the European Union, and has developed a number of partnerships and MOUs

Information & Ethics committee  Well, we think that the legislative framework under the Competition Act is working quite nicely. Since 2015 we've registered with the Competition Tribunal 13 consent agreements, which totalled $26 million in administrative monetary penalties—$24 million with respect to restitutio

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the invitation to attend this committee meeting as well. I'm joined by my colleague from the bureau, Mr. Currie. I understand the committee is looking into PIPEDA, and in that context has questions about the bureau's role with respect to Canada's anti-spam legislat