Industry committee  It's a very difficult topic. It's a very difficult task. I often say that consolidation is a one-way street. It makes the challenge, once the market is concentrated, that much higher. I've written about it in the past. I'd be happy to share that. It's about the concept of fair competition and moving away from competition based on the exercise of power—you referenced the buying power—and instead to the offering of a superior product.

Industry committee  You make a phenomenally important point that's been missed from the discussion over the past couple of years. It's that the issues with food system consolidation and concentration are not just at the retail level, but at the distribution and wholesale levels, with all processors and input providers.

Industry committee  Is this for Mr. Hatfield or me?

Industry committee  The big piece of Bill C-352's contribution is on the defensive side, which is still important. When we look over the past 20 or 30 years, there has been a steady consolidation of the grocery industry, particularly in more remote communities. Merger enforcement, for better or for worse, really is about a strong defence.

Industry committee  I'll return to my opening statement. The focus we should shift to now, and it's possibly bigger than this conversation, is making the mechanics of competition law work faster, more efficiently and more transparently. Improving the information-gathering powers of the Competition Bureau and changing the transparency requirements could speed up the process of resolving competition issues in one way or another.

Industry committee  Many countries are going through a process of looking back at the past 10 or 20 years, and even further back, and unfortunately they're finding general decreases in competitive dynamism and competitive intensity, with a big focus on digital markets that have been dominated by one or two players.

Industry committee  I'm admittedly more familiar with the Canadian and American bodies of law than the European one. One lesson to take away is that the European approach, certainly for abuses of dominance, which includes excessive and unfair pricing, is much stricter than how Canada has approached it in the past.

Industry committee  That's a good question. With Bill C-56, we argued for the commissioner's independent authority to pursue market studies. I think this airline market study will be a good first test of that independence. Bill C-56 was amended to allow the bureau a freer hand. We do have a balance between the elected officials' oversight of the Competition Bureau and the independence of the commissioner.

Industry committee  I'll just jump in quickly. Bill C-59, Bill C-56, Bill C-352 and Bill C-19 are all very sound investments in the future of competition law in Canada. They're not a silver bullet. We're not going to turn the tap on and have competition increase tomorrow. However, in grocery and markets well beyond it—and I'll reference again the bureau's investigation into property controls in the grocery sector and the market study on airlines—these are foundational improvements that are going to pay off for generations to come.

Industry committee  Perhaps I can offer a counterpoint to that. Market share and concentration measures are imperfect measures, but when we get into the messy business of enforcing competition law, we need to balance the data we can have and the analysis we can do quickly with the realities of the market.

Industry committee  You're highlighting a good point. The structural presumptions are a response to the bias against intervention and against the bureau blocking mergers, which has persisted over the past four decades, since the introduction of the Competition Act. To refer to some analysis, of the eight mergers challenged by the bureau, seven resulted in market shares above 60% and four of them in near or literal monopolies.

Industry committee  I frame it as a move away from a belief that more consolidation is the way we need to go to advance economically and deliver benefits to Canadians. We've engaged in that experiment for four decades now, and I think across a number of markets, we're not pleased with the results. If there's a change in philosophy, I think it's about turning the page on that.

Industry committee  Thank you to the committee for inviting me to speak with you today. My name is Keldon Bester, and I'm the executive director of CAMP, a think tank dedicated to addressing the issues of monopoly power and building a more democratic economy in Canada. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee to discuss the proposed amendments to Canada's competition law contained in Bill C-352.

Finance committee  It's an interesting question, depending on your definition of a win. We have never truly blocked a merger in Canada.

Finance committee  Never. Again, going back to the remedy point made earlier, we don't like to block mergers; we like to cook up solutions that we think will preserve competition, so the win record is quite poor. When we do launch challenges, wins are few and far between.