INDY Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'INDUSTRIE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, May 6, 1998

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Susan Whelan (Essex, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order.

Pursuant to an order of reference of the House dated Tuesday, March 17, 1998, consideration of Bill C-20, an Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, our hearings continue.

We have several witnesses before us from the consultative panel. We have Professor Stanbury from the faculty of commerce and business administration, University of British Columbia; Mr. Peter Woolford, vice-president of policy from the Retail Council of Canada; Norman Stewart, vice-president, government relations, and general counsel of Ford of Canada; and Marnie McCall, executive director of the Consumers' Association of Canada.

I propose that everyone begin with an opening statement of no more than five minutes. If you don't have one, that's fine. We'll go right into questions.

I have two printed statements before me—one from Professor Stanbury and one from Ms. McCall. I'm not sure who would like to begin.

Professor Stanbury, is there any order of preference among the consultative panel? Is there someone who wants to speak?

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Ms. Marnie McCall (Executive Director, Consumers' Association of Canada): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I guess I've been voted to go first. I'm the executive director of the Consumers' Association of Canada.

The Consumers' Association of Canada is a national, not-for-profit, volunteer-based organization founded in 1947. We've been involved with the Competition Act in various ways since before the Competition Act existed. We were one of the organizations that worked very hard to modernize the legislation and move from the Anti-Combines Act to the Competition Act. We've been involved in ongoing consultations and presentations ever since then.

We've been involved with the working group on amendments to the misleading advertising and deceptive marketing practices provisions since 1990. We responded to the 1995 discussion paper. My predecessor, Rosalie Daly Todd, was a member of the consultative panel that worked on the amendments before you today.

Given our lengthy involvement in competition issues, you may be surprised that we have not submitted a detailed brief. We regret that we cannot do so, but we no longer have the capacity to participate in public policy development to the extent we wish to do so.

Almost every piece of legislation that now comes before Parliament has a potential impact on consumers. Departmental polices and Privy Council guidelines call for increased public involvement in policy development, and the demand for our input has increased dramatically over the past few years. Our ability to generate the revenues to support that work has not kept pace.

I have provided to the members of the committee a paper called “The Role of Consumer Organizations in Public Policy Development”. It goes into these issues in more detail. I would just highlight that the government's policies on cost recovery are slowly beginning to be recognized as a two-way street. It is not costless for us to do the work that goes into policy input, and we also need to recover those costs.

With regard to the amendments to Bill C-20, overall the Consumers' Association is very supportive of these amendments and we would like to see them passed and implemented as soon as possible. We believe these amendments provide Canadian consumers with more effective protection, and the sooner they are in place the better off consumers will be.

We see the introduction of a civil regime as an extremely positive step. The power to issue cease-and-desist orders, in particular, is a valuable tool for consumer protection because it limits the impact of a misleading practice.

Civil monetary penalties, with the focuses being on compliance rather that enforcement, encourage the early correction of misleading advertising, again preventing loss to consumers. Consumers are generally much better protected by prevention than by punishment after the fact.

When criminal proceedings are the only tool available, cases tend to drag on. We have just seen an example of this with 10 years to reach settlement in a recent case. That kind of delay is simply not useful to consumers, so we're pleased to see additional remedies brought in.

Our only reservation about the civil regime is that it does not make any provision for restitution. This was an issue that was discussed in the consultative panel meetings, and as I understand, it was deferred to a second round of review, and we would encourage that to take place.

With regard to misleading advertising, as I mentioned, we believe the appropriate focus of the act should be on compliance rather than punishment, and we believe the civil regime will encourage and promote compliance.

We also support the new proposed test for determining whether a regular price claim is valid. We believe the language of the test is clear for both vendors and consumers and also addresses the realities of differences in the sales cycles of different types of merchandise, which I believe was a significant issue in the previous language.

With regard to deceptive telemarketing, we are strongly supportive of these provisions. We believe deceptive telemarketing has become a major problem, and that consumers deserve protection from it as soon as possible.

We do not object to the inclusion of provisions permitting the use of wire-taps to obtain evidence of deceptive telemarketing, and for use in investigating other offences. Our proviso is that these provisions be parallel to those in the Criminal Code, that warrants be difficult to get and a strong case needs to be made, but given that, we support that investigative tool.

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On other issues, in 1995 in our response to the discussion paper, we recommended that there should be a means of private parties initiating the process. That was not addressed, and in these amendments we urge the committee to look at that question again, or recommend that the department look at that question again.

We would also like to bring up a point regarding electronic commerce, specifically commerce over the Internet. Consumer protection issues do not change depending on whether a sale is made in a store, through mail order, through telemarketing or over the Internet. In all cases consumers need information, security of transactions, complaint handling mechanisms and redress. The issues are the same regardless of the mode by which the transaction is carried out, and we see no need for a specific regulation regarding the Internet.

In summary, our recommendations are that the committee recommend quick passage and implementation of Bill C-20; that the question of restitution in the civil regime be examined with a view to extending restitution from the criminal side to the civil side as well; that the question of permitting private parties to initiate proceedings before the tribunal be revisited; and that the compliance and enforcement tools provided in the act be reviewed to ensure they are sufficient to address misleading advertising on the Internet, and flexible enough to adapt generally as new modes of commerce come into being.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. McCall.

Professor Stanbury, take us through your brief, if you could.

Professor William Thomas Stanbury (Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia): Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am just going to highlight some of the points made in the paper. It's filed so that you can take it up or ask questions on it in more detail later.

Let me begin my saying that I've testified on all of the major efforts to amend Canada's competition legislation since 1973, including the one that resulted in changing the Combines Investigation Act into the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act in 1986. I was a member of the consultative panel appointed by the minister, but I would note that the work of that panel ended two years ago and it has taken a rather long time to get a rather modest number of amendments brought before the House. They are still not done and there is some chance they won't get done this year, and that would be a serious tragedy.

I should note that some of the items the consultative panel recommended have not been incorporated in the bill, and Ms McCall has noted a number of those.

I too strongly support Bill C-20, the amendments to the Competition Act, for several reasons.

First, with one exception, the proposed amendments are the product of an extensive consultative process initiated by the director of investigation and research.

Second, the proposed amendments respond to clearly significant enforcement problems, such as telemarketing scams, and new thinking about anti-trust enforcement—for example, adding a civil enforcement process to the misleading advertising provisions.

Third, the proposed amendments also reflect experience with the act—for example, the changes regarding pre-merger notification, changes to section 34 regarding prohibition orders, and changes regarding ordinary price claims. The experience indicated a need to strengthen certain sections, to modify certain provisions, and to clarify the law.

I want to emphasize, however, that as the Minister of Industry told the committee, these amendments are not intended to be an in-depth reform of the Competition Act. Indeed, shortly after I jointed the consultative panel, I indicated that I believe the director and the government should be proposing a far more important set of reforms. I set those out in section 12 of my paper, and I'll refer to one or two later, Madam Chair.

With respect to deceptive telemarketing practices, there is no question that those would represent a major improvement in the act. Let me just sketch for you the case for these new tools and why it's a strong one. First, there is pretty good evidence that the incidence of these scams is growing. Second, the cost of these scams is high. When he testified here, the Minister of Industry put the annual cost on the order of $4 billion, and that's huge by any standard of other kinds of offences like that.

Third, scam artists tend to focus on the more vulnerable, and that point has been recognized in the act. Next, with low and declining long-distance telephone rates, nationwide scams can be located anywhere. Cross-border scams are fairly common, so it is necessary to be able to cooperate with the U.S. authorities and that has already been done.

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Next, deceptive telemarketing operations are very easily portable, and the authorities need the ability to respond very quickly. Otherwise they just won't be able to catch these people. Also, it has to be noted that in the past, enforcement, because it required the complex coordination of a number of agencies, was cumbersome and slow, and frankly the penalties were simply to low. Crime paid, and it showed.

With respect to the misleading advertising provision, let me note that the director has indicated he expects to use the civil provisions in most cases. To choose the criminal track for the misleading advertising provisions, the director has indicated in his proposed guidelines that two criteria must be met. First, there must be clear and compelling evidence that the accused knowingly or recklessly made a false or misleading representation to the public. Second, the director must also be satisfied that criminal prosecution would be in the public interest. And he lists five factors relating to the seriousness of the alleged offence and two mitigating ones that would be part of that decision.

Let me turn now to the ordinary or regular price claims provisions. Again, the director has put forward proposed guidelines, and these go quite a ways to helping the business community understand what the key terms in the clauses mean. For example, in general, “substantial volume” will be taken to be when more than 50% of sales are at or above the higher comparison price. “A reasonable period of time” will consider the nature of the product during the selling life of the product, but in no case more than one year. So those are helpful guidelines, and no doubt over time the director will clarify them even further in the light of experience.

With respect to deceptive marketing practices, it's important to appreciate that four provisions now in the Criminal Code will become civil reviewable matters. I list them on page 7; they include bait-and-switch selling, sale above advertised price, promotional contests, and representation as to a reasonable test and publication of a testimonial. Those are all useful changes. It's simply a recognition that civil law is indeed a much more appropriate tool to try to do that job.

Let me turn now to the matter of wire-tapping. In my paper I refer to a frankly rather anxious column by Mr. Terence Corcoran. It's important to appreciate—and I'm sure the committee already does—that authorization will be required before a judge, and to get the authorization, the director will have to set out the particulars of the alleged offence and the facts upon which the application is based; the type of communications to be intercepted, the names and addresses of the targets, the manner of interception to be used, and the period of time for which authorization is sought; and third, whether other types of investigation have been tried and have failed, or why it appears they would be unlikely to be successful. So it's a pretty detailed kind of application that's going to have to be spelled out.

It's important to realize the kinds of offences that this is to be applied to. Only three types of offences are going to be used here: section 45, the conspiracy provision; section 47, the bid-rigging; and the new section dealing with telemarketing scams. All of those are entirely appropriate for the use of this particular tool.

I note on page 10 the reasons that kind of tool is becoming increasingly necessary to do the job. The nature of these conspiracies or arrangements is such that without that, it's extremely difficult to get the necessary evidence. Remember, these are criminal offences, and the standard of proof is high, as it should properly be so.

I describe some of the provisions regarding advance notification, which I view as largely house-cleaning but nevertheless rather valuable. I note the changes in the prohibition order and that the director will have a new title.

Finally, let me conclude with the need for more substantive reforms. I want to emphasize one in particular. I believe that section 45, which deals with conspiracies among competitors, needs to be rewritten to specify that garden-variety agreements among competitors to fix prices, share markets, or bar entry should be made illegal per se, as they have been illegal per se in the United States since 1890.

We have that noxious word “unduly”, which says that a little price-fixing, or in fact a fair degree of price-fixing, is okay in legal terms. That seems to me to be a logical contradiction and an affront to Canadian consumers and businesses as well. So I'm proposing some details as to how that ought to be reformed.

I realize those items are not on this committee's agenda, but it would be useful if the committee could signal to the director that in its view, some more substantive recommendations for changing the act should be made. I've outlined another seven in my discussion.

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I'd like to finish on one more point.

In addition to the proposed amendment, it is essential to increase substantially the budget of the Competition Bureau. Its resources have fallen seriously behind the expansion of its responsibilities.

I refer you to a recently published paper, which I'll file with the committee today to provide the documentation in support of that conclusion. I realize it's a very brief statement and a rather sweeping one, but I provide you with 40 printed pages to justify the conclusion.

Without the resources, the best law in the world cannot be properly enforced, so part of what we need is not only new law but also new resources to be able to enforce it effectively.

I'd be happy to answer your questions later. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Stanbury.

I'm not sure whether Mr. Woolford or Mr. Stewart have anything to say before going to questions.

Mr. Woolford.

Mr. Peter Woolford (Vice-President, Policy, Retail Council of Canada): I think I just got nominated, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for the invitation to appear here.

At the outset, my humble apologies to the committee. I had not realized that you set aside two hours to hear from the panel this afternoon. I have a family obligation in Toronto and I'm on the 6 p.m. flight, so I will have to leave a few minutes early. I do regret it. It's just my unawareness that we had that much time to address the issues this afternoon.

I've got a couple of brief opening comments. What we need to do here is situate the Competition Act and its importance for retailers. It really is an important element in the legal framework under which retailers or sellers and consumers interact their business. For that reason, it is of considerable importance to us.

We are very strongly supportive of the amendments brought before the committee, and we urge you to pass them with all due diligence. We feel it is very important that these be passed through this Parliament.

As Professor Stanbury noted, the panel completed its work some two years ago and we're getting quite concerned that the momentum is very slow on the second part of the policy development process.

There are four parts of Bill C-20 that I would like to talk to specifically in my opening remarks: misleading practices, irregular price claims, telemarketing, and wire-tapping.

We welcome very happily the creation of the dual civil-criminal regime. We feel it is a much more responsible and effective way of proceeding with these kinds of practices.

The previous approach of the bureau in dealing with a few high-profile cases they tried to take through the criminal procedure, in our view, clearly did not work. We feel the movement toward enhancing compliance is a much more efficient and effective way of proceeding with these kinds of offences.

I want to flag for the committee the consensus on the panel that most of the cases should be civil and should be dealt with using compliance-oriented tools: cease-and-desist orders, corrective notices, and the like. That's because it is important, when this legislation gets put into practice, the bureau follow that spirit. It would be very unfortunate if the bureau were to go back and start using extensive recourse to the criminal process or start seeking large fines for exemplary purposes.

We, as the panel members and speaking on behalf of the Retail Council, believe it is better for the marketplace and it's better for the competitors and for the consumers in that marketplace to get quick compliance than it is to extract money or other punishments from a firm.

One of the issues I want to flag for the committee in this area as well is the process for determining whether the director will proceed on the criminal track or the civil track. We support this. We're delighted to hear that the director is going to try to make that determination as quickly as he can. We understand it's going to take some time to work out and that experience may well be the best guide in this area.

Having looked at the guidelines—and we understand the guidelines are not before the committee today, but they do give us some sense of how the legislation will be put into place—our early and, I stress, tentative conclusion is that the guidelines don't provide much guidance. It may simply be the case that this is an area in which trying to catch what is a nuanced decision that the director must make is just not possible. Our sense is that time and experience will give people the degree of clarity and certainty that all parties in the marketplace would appreciate.

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The second implication comes from some of the changes that come with all of the bill: the dual track approach, some uncertainty about how the director will make those choices, and the shift from a punishment orientation to a compliance orientation. Our sense is that where the director starts to work with an industry on a practice that is fairly common or just beginning in an industry and wants to achieve compliance around some norm or standards, there may initially be on the part of the industry leaders some reluctance to come to the table.

Let me give you an example. Back in the late eighties the Retail Council, the Consumers' Association, and a number of other groups worked very closely with the government on environmental claims, which the bureau at that time was concerned about from the point of view of misleading the consumer. With all of the changes that are going on in the area of misleading practices right now, we might see from industry some caution about entering into that kind of cooperative relationship until they have a little more clarity about just how the director will manager the process and what the ground rules are. Again, there are no problems; I think it's just a matter that will take some time to work out.

With respect to regular price claims, we strongly support the changes here. In fact, it was the Retail Council supported by the Consumers' Association that pressed the bureau for changes in this area. The reality is that the intensity of competition in the retail marketplace and the popularity of sales with consumers have meant that many retailers have moved to using promotional pricing strategies. Consumers respond actively to sale offerings, with the result that retailers sell a lot of merchandise and then by definition are unable to meet the volume test.

A classic test would be household linens. When stores put them on sale...people tend to either wait to buy or buy in advance that type of merchandise. I can recall my son working at Canadian Tire and saying that socket wrench sets sold out when they were on sale. They didn't move rapidly at other times, but when they went on sale every box of socket wrenches in the store sold out very quickly. Consumers and retailers have trained each other on the sale game, if you will.

We strongly support the key change to permit both the time test and the volume test.

There are a couple of items in the guidelines I would flag for the committee for your information: clearance sales, and the timeframe for price claims under the time test.

We believe a clearance sale—that is, a sale in which the seller is planning to exhaust his or her stocks of the merchandise and either not carry that piece of merchandise again or not carry it again for that selling season—is different in quality and nature from other sales. We feel it should be flagged a little more clearly than it is now in the guidelines.

Second, we have a difference with the bureau around what is a substantial period of time for the purposes of the time test for most products. In our view, most retail products follow an annual selling cycle, and most retailers do their advertising promotion sales plans on an annual basis. We would suggest that a year is the appropriate time when determining whether a merchant's claims meet the time test or not. The bureau has suggested six months. This is something we will continue to discuss with the bureau.

With respect to telemarketing, we strongly support the changes here. Telemarketing has emerged as a very popular way of selling, but it's also emerging, as Bill and Marnie have pointed out, as a way of defrauding Canadians. We believe the provisions here will be a useful first step in trying to combat that type of fraud.

The one point we would note here is that a bit of clarification on what exactly telemarketing is might be helpful. We would suggest that the provision apply only to live voice communication. Our discussions with the director have indicated that is his intention, but we feel the very simple addition of the words “live voice” before the words “interactive telephone communications” in proposed section 52.1 would make it clear. It's a fairly minor amendment, and we think it would bring some clarity to this area.

The final area is wire-tapping. We share some of the concerns the Canadian business community has expressed to this committee.

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My sense is that the principal reason there is nervousness around the wire-tapping provisions is that this came to the table very late, did not have the benefit of the consultation through the panels, and people are still trying to work out what this beast is. As a result, there's a lack of comfort and understanding with just what the government is proposing.

The director is to be given considerable power, and there's still a lack of clarity about just when and how he would exercise it.

One thought that has occurred to us is that it might be useful to limit the power initially to telemarketing cases, where the nature of the offence itself lends itself to wire-tapping. Perhaps we can allow some experience in that area and a little more thinking to go into the issue before it is extended to the other offences that are proposed. Again, this could be done by passing the legislation but not proclaiming the relevant section until later. Obviously, though, it's for Parliament to decide.

In conclusion, I want to make a couple of remarks about the process. On behalf of I think all the panellists and on behalf of the Retail Council, I'd like to say to the committee that we feel the process followed here was excellent. The issues came to the table and were thoroughly discussed, and we feel that out the other end came better legislation, better understood by the market participants, and a much clearer, cleaner dialogue between the Bureau of Competition Policy and those who are regulated by it. If there are further amendments, we strongly suggest this process be followed again.

This bill has been developed using an exemplary consultative process. We think it has balanced, fair amendments and will serve the needs of all the players in the marketplace.

We do hope, and I want to conclude with this, the bill will be passed expeditiously. We are concerned that with Parliament's time running out toward the end of June, it may get lost in the shuffle. That would be, as Bill said, a tragedy. It would be very, very unfortunate. We urge this committee, we urge Parliament, to please pass this legislation soon.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Woolford.

Mr. Stewart, do you have any comments as well?

Mr. Norman J. Stewart (Vice-President, Government Relations, and General Counsel, Ford of Canada Ltd.): Yes. I have no prepared comments, but I just want to echo what Peter Woolford has said in terms of the process.

Both Peter and I have had some real experience with other consultative processes over the years and have learned a lot from them. We have found they work really well in terms of framework legislation such as the Competition Act.

They also work well when you have a contentious issue, where there is or has been some opposing views by various groups in society, and there's a need to legislate. Where you can bring those groups together in a strong framework, strong terms of reference, and with a careful chairperson to guide the process, you can reach a consensus you wouldn't ordinarily reach.

When it works properly, the legislation could actually be developed in a way that speeds the process. If anything, it supports the whole parliamentary process. In no way does it detract from it. It actually brings real support to it.

We've seen it work well here. It's worked well in Ontario with their Class Proceedings Act and their Environmental Bill of Rights Act, things that business groups ordinarily would not have found any reason to support but could work together on to reach a piece of legislation that in general would be good for society.

So, like Peter, I commend that kind of process to your committee for other pieces of legislation.

With regard to the Competition Bureau itself, if we look back historically, we had as a business community some really contentious struggles with the bureau in the sixties, seventies, and even early eighties, when the bureau wanted to introduce legislation and business adamantly opposed it, sometimes for no good reason, almost just for the sake of opposing it.

Mr. Peter Woolford: Be careful, Norm.

Mr. Norman Stewart: What we found here was a completely different approach, an approach in which we worked toward consensus and handled discrete amounts of change that could be managed and worked through, and one in which we could have a periodic review that might take place every few years so additional changes can come forth in future years much more manageable and in the end much better for the bureau and for society generally here in Canada.

I commend the process, and I'd be willing to answer any questions you have about it.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart.

We're going to go to questions. If the question's directed at one person and anyone else wants to answer or if everyone wants to interview, just say so to me. I'll try to make sure I take notice.

Mr. Schmidt.

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Mr. Werner Schmidt (Kelowna, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, madam and gentlemen, for appearing here.

I just want to clarify. Mr. Stewart, you are the counsel for Ford of Canada Ltd., are you?

Mr. Norman Stewart: I think the title on the agenda is a misdescription. My actual title is vice-president, government relations, and general counsel for Ford of Canada.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Ford of Canada. That includes the automotive Ford of Canada, does it? That's Ford of Canada, the people who make cars and trucks and things like that.

Mr. Norman Stewart: That's Ford Motor Company. It's an excellent company.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Yes, I appreciate that. I drive one.

Mr. Norman Stewart: That's all I buy.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That aside, I find this very interesting. In fact, we'll start with you, because this morning I think there was a preliminary announcement that Daimler and Mercedes-Benz are negotiating to merge with Chrysler.

Mr. Norman Stewart: I read that article.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Yes, I'm sure we all read it.

The automatic question that arises in my mind has to do with the amendments in the Competition Act relevant to mergers. There's all kinds of talk now, not only of the automotive industry. Merging is going on in the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry, and in the financial sector, particularly among the banks.

I want to relate this to the other section of this bill, which deals with price fixing. It seems to me that if you reduce the number of people who are in a particular area, you no longer have a problem with price fixing because there's only one player. Where there are so few players, it doesn't matter any more.

Is this one of the motivations behind mergers?

Mr. Norman Stewart: I can't speak to the Chrysler and Daimler-Benz situation.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: No, I knew you couldn't.

Mr. Norman Stewart: All I know is what I read in the newspaper.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Can you speak of it as a concept? You are general counsel, so obviously you are aware.

Mr. Norman Stewart: That's right.

First of all, the existing legislation dealing with merger reviews and transactions of that nature is an excellent piece of legislation as it sits now, and the bureau does a fine job of processing those applications as they come through.

The amendments in Bill C-20 will refine it, will give them the ability to get some more extensive information. It will also allow them to apply for interim orders to gain more time, if necessary, to properly process a review of a merger. If anything, it's going to strengthen the bureau's position and the government's position in adequately reviewing all these transactions.

That was one of the things that struck me when we met as a group, as a task force. Various components of the bureau would come forward and make presentations to us. One of the best presentations was done by the merger group about how they go about doing their work, how they analyse upper-post transactions, and how they move as swiftly as they can to conclude them. I was left with a very positive feeling that Canada's well protected by that group.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: What's happening here is very interesting. When we had the director of the bureau here, we asked him about this merger thing, especially as it relates to the banks. There's a very interesting complication here, because the Competition Bureau is under the authority and responsibility of the Minister of Industry, but the decision as to whether financial institutions will be allowed to merge rests with the Minister of Finance. All other mergers rest with the Minister of Industry, or with the Competition Bureau.

As a counsel for a major corporation, do you find this kind of division, where there is a dual reporting responsibility on the part of the director—they call it a commissioner now—of the Competition Bureau when it comes to industry generally and financial institutions, the banks, in particular...?

Mr. Norman Stewart: I think with respect to banks it's just simply a unique situation. They've been governed by the Bank Act for many, many years.

With respect to mergers themselves, my understanding as an outsider looking in is that there will be a definite role for the director—soon to be commissioner—to be part of that review process.

The director has sought comments from interested parties on how the guidelines that would ordinarily be applied to review a merger would apply in this kind of a situation with a bank, because it is a unique situation.

I think we're probably going to get the best of both. You're going to get the expertise the bureau can bring to bear in reviewing proposed mergers, and you have the unique expertise that comes from the ministry of financial institutions, with respect to banks.

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So I think you've got a unique situation; it isn't the normal situation I would face in my business, although my business ordinarily would be reviewed. If we merge with anybody, it's with the bureau itself and nobody else.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I agree completely.

The Chair: This is your last question, please, Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Okay.

The final question, to finish this issue in particular, is this. You will be affected. Whether it's unique and doesn't affect you perhaps directly in one sense, it does affect you indirectly or has the potential to affect you.

Mr. Norman Stewart: Absolutely.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's why you're going to be consulted.

Mr. Norman Stewart: That's right.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's why I'm rather surprised you don't have an opinion.

Mr. Norman Stewart: A Bank Act task force is under way now and is making comments. One of the things they were looking at, and still are looking at, is the concept of mergers of banks and concentrations of powers, so to speak, in the banking industry.

Our industry, the automotive industry, is very mindful of what's going on with banks. We're watching very carefully what's taking place with the Bank Act task review and waiting expectantly to get the results of that review. We're also watching carefully what the bureau will do in terms of its review of it from a merger or Competition Act perspective.

You're right that what happens is going to have a great impact on Canadians. We're watching it as much as anybody. We have a definite interest.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Shepherd, please.

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Thank you.

Professor Stanbury, one of the concerns I've had going through this is one that a lot of people have raised, and that is the issue of increasing wire-tap provisions to include conspiracy and bid-rigging.

This wasn't in the act before, and I see by your paper that you've done considerable research in the area.

I guess it's a concern in the backdrop of people's general concern about privacy. Wire-tapping is very intrusive and the provisions under the existing act under conspiracy seem to be a very general definition of what conspiracy is. There remains a very specific hammer called wire-tapping or eaves-dropping or the interception of communications.

I guess I'm looking for your opinion. I see on page 10 you've given some reasons, but they're still not very clear to me.

What is the “evidential material” we haven't had in the past and because of that have been prevented from enforcing the act?

Prof. William Stanbury: Well, as you probably know, this item was not put forward to the consultative panel by the director as part of the package he was proposing in the fall of 1995, when the panel began its work. It reported in April.

The exact genesis of this provision I don't really know. I would emphasize that this is an intrusive tool. The director already has a number of formal powers under the act—and I sketched those powers and referred to them—and this tool will be subject to exactly the same process for authorization as those tools are.

There's actually a double screen, a treble screen here. The first thing is the director will have to be satisfied that it's appropriate to do it. The second is the director will work with the Department of Justice. None of these applications will be filed by the director individually; they will be filed only after screening by the Department of Justice. Following that, it goes to a judge. It's then screened at that level to see whether it's an appropriate tool.

I can't speak to how many investigations in the past could have benefited from the use of this tool. I have sketched for you the way conspiracies are operating these days, where this tool would be useful. I don't think it's absolutely...from what I can tell, that we've not been able to detect or been able to get sufficient evidence because of the lack of the tool. But I don't know that for a fact, because the bureau did not, as I say, as far as I understand it, study this particular question as part of its proposals for amendments. You'd have to ask one of those officials what would be appropriate.

The important thing to recognize, though, is that the conspiracy and restraint of trade is a general provision, but it almost always deals with two things: price-fixing and market sharing, what I call garden-variety conspiracies. You don't find overt agreements, you find covert agreements.

• 1615

We have a relatively high degree of concentration in many of our markets in Canada, despite the fact that we've had some globalization and so forth, but this means they can facilitate coordination in an oligopoly by informal methods. One of the methods you have to facilitate that coordination is by means of the telephone. You don't send a lot of formal documents back and forth. That's not the way it's done, to the extent that it's done. So it would be useful to have that tool. But my feel for it is it would be used very sparingly, very sparingly.

The second point is that you may be troubled by the breadth of the conspiracy provision, although that has developed quite substantial and differentiated meaning over time, but the bid-rigging provision has been in the act since 1976, and that's very specific. It is a per se offence, as opposed to requiring that the crown show that competition has lessened unduly under the basic section 45 provision.

To reiterate, I just don't think it's going to be used a great deal. Certainly the fear that has been expressed in a couple of quarters that it would be used as a kind of general fishing expedition is totally inconsistent with the pattern of behaviour I've studied and observed in the bureau over the years. They just don't operate that way. It's done very carefully and very responsibly, and this will not be any different, because I think bureau officials will recognize this is a very intrusive tool. Mind you, going and searching the offices and seizing documents is a very intrusive tool as well. The difference is obviously the target knows when that happens. In this case they would not know until after a charge had been laid that in fact evidence was obtained by that method.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: My second question is mainly to the consumer people here or the Retail Council.

We seek to delete section 54, which talks about double ticketing, presumably because this offence was considered to be outdated. But it seems to me a new kind of double ticketing exists today, where people are going through these cash registers and using coding devices. There's a price on the shelf, but the code hasn't been changed in the computer system. I hear a lot of people being upset about that. Should this section be reintroduced and modernized so it reflects the interests of modern consumers?

Ms. Marnie McCall: I understand the Public Interest Advocacy Centre did appear before the committee and in its submission argued for the retention of the provision. I understand that no complaints have been made under that section for quite some time, and that was the reason for dropping it.

The presence of it may certainly discourage deliberate double ticketing, but also, a retailer who wants to retain customers is not going to charge the higher price, although possibly there is more risk of that where you have a shelf sticker and you have the bar code sticker.

But again, the UPC scanning code, which has been adopted by many people in the retail grocery industry, makes it a part of that code that the customer is entitled to the lower price, and if they are charged a higher price, in fact they're entitled to their money back and the good free.

I certainly see nothing wrong with retaining it. I'm not sure whether it needs to be modernized. I'm not familiar with the language.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: My wife and others tell me this was widespread in the past.

The Chair: Last question, please, Mr. Shepherd.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: I understand that in some jurisdictions, such as New Zealand and Australia, in fact it is written in such a way that if that happens, the good is free. Maybe that's the way we should draft this.

Ms. Marnie McCall: Model codes are being developed as industry codes of practice that would implement that. I don't believe in Canada there has yet been a suggestion that we would move to legislation. I think the intention is to see whether such a code could gain widespread acceptance.

I'm sure Peter knows more about that.

The Chair: Mr. Woolford.

Mr. Peter Woolford: This is an issue we've been working on with the bureau for some three years now. The issue is one we take very seriously. We released in January of this year, with the support of the bureau, a set of guidelines instructing retailers on what good practice is for ensuring consistency in price presentation.

• 1620

With specific respect to your question, our understanding is that if a merchant is displaying one price on the shelf, on the product or in his or her advertising, and producing another price at the point of sale, that is a misleading practice. It would be caught under the general misleading provision, and if the bureau felt there was a serious problem there, under the existing legislation or under the new legislation, they could and perhaps would proceed with a misleading practice case.

What we have found from the research the bureau has done, and from the old consumer products branch, is that in most cases this kind of discrepancy is a result of poor procedures within the company, poor implementation of those procedures in the store, or simply mistakes.

One of the clearest pieces of evidence of that is that when surveys have been done around discrepancies, there are almost as many errors against the consumer as there are in favour of the consumer. In other words, it seems to come out almost 50-50. Half the errors are in favour of the consumer. In other words, the price that is scanned in at the point of sale is lower than the price the merchant intends to charge, and half the time the price is higher than the merchant says they intend to charge in their advertising. So there does not appear to be any evidence at this point that merchants are doing this in an effort to cheat the customer. It's more bad practice or poor implementation of policies by companies. It's an area that we're continuing to work on with the bureau and we hope to make further progress in it.

It's one of those things that is a source of tension within a company. It takes time, money and people to get prices right. Particularly in an environment where prices move, it is difficult to always be sure that the price you show on the shelf is the same as the price you show at the point of sale.

What we've done with our guidelines is to try to ensure that companies follow an automatic procedure so that the price does not come live until everything is right and correct, and then all the changes are in place at the same time. That's the general thrust of the guideline that we've developed with our members. It's something we take seriously and we're still working on it.

The Chair: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shepherd.

[Translation]

Madame Lalonde, you have the floor.

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Thank you for your presentation. I would like to start by making a comment to the spokesperson of the Consumers' Association of Canada. I understand very well when you say that consumers are more and more involved in policy development but that they do not have enough financial resources.

As a matter of fact, I was quite surprised to read in the performance report of the Department that they were congratulating themselves for having helped consumers' associations to become self-financing. I wanted to raise this matter with you.

I would like to ask a few questions. Don't you think that the enormous power of the Director of Investigations—soon to be Commissioner—should lead us to consider at the very least the involvement of a third party? At the present time, the only person who can not only start an investigation but also decide to proceed civilly or criminally is the Director. That was my first question.

Here is the second. In Quebec, there is a piece of legislation, rather good I believe, where section 219 read as follows:

219. No businessman, manufacturer or advertiser can, through any means, make false or misleading representations to a consumer.

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It seems to me that this could lead to some overlap with a new federal legislation based on civil proceedings. In Quebec, there are fines. In the new Canadian regime, they are called "administrative monetary sanctions"? This is a rather strange expression, don't you think, but the reason why they did not want to call them "fines" seems rather obvious to me.

It's because there is a risk of overlap and confusion. And I would go even further. Under the Bill, if the Commissioner decides to proceed civilly, any type of criminal proceeding will be excluded. Is there not a danger of confusion with the provincial system, at least as far as Quebec is concerned?

My third question is as follows. You stated that we were moving from a policy of punishment to a policy of prevention. As a matter of fact, both are being kept. At least, that is what they claim. Would you not believe that the weakening of the criminal proceedings—and I believe it would be difficult to argue differently—will not necessarily be compensated by the strengthening of the prevention policy, since the Commissioner is the only one who will be able to prosecute and since his resources are limited?

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Madame Lalonde.

Who would like to try to answer that? Ms. McCall.

Ms. Marnie McCall: With regard to your comment about the funding, Industry Canada does run a grants and contributions program through the office of consumer affairs, and we have received funding from them in the past. They also help put us in contact with other departments where we may also find funding. So the department does assist but we no longer receive a major grant, as we used to, for our core operation.

With regard to the Quebec legislation, on behalf of Canadian consumers, we would be delighted if all the other provinces had the legislation that Quebec has. We have urged other provinces for many years to bring their legislation more in line with what is available in Quebec. If all provinces had similar legislation, the only issue would be coordinating enforcement.

Since we do not have comparable legislation across the country, I think it's important, because so many retailers are national, that the Competition Bureau has a role in here. I certainly hope the director, in deciding which way to go, would take into consideration whether the offence is wholly taking place in Quebec. If it does not involve any other parts of the country, then I presume the director would consult with his colleagues in Quebec, but where it's cross-border I think there has to be a consistent response across the country.

So on the face of it perhaps it's overlapping or confusing, but in practice I would hope that's kept to a minimum.

With regard to whether shifting toward a compliance, civil—in a previous lifetime I practised criminal law, so I'm familiar with that as well. Generally speaking, the power of the criminal law ought to be reserved for the most serious cases, for two reasons.

First, that is the way we show our disapproval of serious offences. Second, this is an area where misleading impressions can be given by accident or absolutely without any malice or deliberate thought, so it's not appropriate that those people receive the whole hammer of the criminal law.

• 1630

The other reason is because, for consumers, in many situations it will be impossible for an individual consumer to be compensated. Therefore, prevention is the most important consumer protection.

So anything that increases the possibility of stopping a misleading practice in the very early stages or preventing it from taking place at all is much more to the benefit of consumers than waiting ten years for a settlement, which is what we had last week. Ten years doesn't help, and if that's the way that the criminal system works, it isn't doing consumers any good. As mentioned by Peter, using their power as an example, when you have to wait ten years for the example, it's not much of a deterrent to other retailers either.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. McCall. Mr. Woolford, do you wish to add to that?

[Translation]

Mr. Peter Woolford: Thank you, Madam Chair.

As far as choosing between the two methods, the Consultative Panel discussed the matter and decided that the power to choose should be left to the Director. We know that it will be a rather difficult decision to make but we believe that, since we are aiming towards prevention and better competition, we would be better off with a system where emphasis is put on compliance and coming to an agreement on marketing practices rather than on legal proceedings. The business community is rather pleased with this decision.

Of course, it will be up to the Director to choose but we believe that, considering the lack of resources, it will be better to provide him with a tool that is more effective, simpler and less costly than one that would be more powerful but that would require such a huge staff that it would be nearly impossible to operate. This is in answer to your third question.

You have also alluded to the overlap with the provisions of the Quebec legislation. We do not see any problem there. Over the years, we have not seen any problems caused by any differences between the two jurisdictions or by confusion in the minds of the consumers.

We have a federal piece of legislation that regulates market practices, and a provincial piece of legislation dealing with the interests of the consumers. Those two issues are rather different. The Competition Bureau told us quite clearly that serving interests of the market is not the same as protecting the consumer. Those are two rather different perspectives and we believe that the differences existing between the two pieces of legislation help in clarifying the differences and in reducing the risk of overlap. Furthermore, the lack of resources at both levels of government ensures that both regulators have to cooperate, as they have done in the past.

Thirdly, let's consider the changes that would be implemented. We are working closely with the police to catch stealers and all police officers tell us that what criminals fear most is to be caught in the act. It is not the harshness of the punishment but the risk of being caught. Within a civil system of law that would be expedited and that would be used more frequently, the risk for them would be higher. Even if the punishment is reduced, the risk of being caught is what is most important to those who want to break the law. For us, the change to civil proceedings gives more assurances to the good competitors within the market as well as to the consumers.

• 1635

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Stewart, do you wish to add to that as well?

Mr. Norman Stewart: I have a brief comment with respect to a third party injecting themselves into the process beyond the director, in terms of making the decision between going by a civil or criminal procedure.

The way the legislation has been drafted, the director is going to make a number of considerations and his or her staff will make considerations as to whether this is an egregious offence kind of thing, whether there is reckless or knowing conduct involved, the seriousness of the event, and what mitigating factors might have taken place. They'll go all through those various steps, but in the end the director will make a recommendation to the Attorney General, and it will be the Attorney General's decision whether to move by way of criminal prosecution. So another body will have a chance to look at this. It won't be purely the decision of the director, so I think there's balance there.

The Chair: Thank you, Madame Lalonde.

Mr. Lastewka, please.

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): I want to thank you for your detailed presentations, and Professor Stanbury, also the fact that we need to continue to look at the Competition Act in detail as we go further, and your concern about getting this legislation through as soon as possible for the good of consumers.

I want to talk about the area of the wire-tap amendment and whether it was or wasn't discussed enough during the consultative panel discussions and so forth. We have it before us, and the objective was to have telemarketing as part of the wire-tap. Do you have a concern that it's there? I heard you talk a little bit about it being used by discretion and so forth. Could you expand on your viewpoints on wire-tap and telemarketing?

Prof. William Stanbury: My understanding is that the concern about telemarketing is partly what motivated the introduction of that amendment, and then it was extended to the others. I don't know the full parentage of where that's coming from, but that's my understanding.

The evidence presented to us on the telemarketing problems indicate that it is quite severe and that we haven't had the right tools. People at the provincial level have tried, the RCMP had a task force, the feds have been working through the director's office and so on, but they just didn't have the right tools to work on an integrated basis. That's why you needed to create some new offences and to centralize the administration of enforcement into a single agency, and one that has experience in analogous kinds of activity and the director can certainly claim that.

On the issue of whether or not it's needed specifically for telemarketing, I can't say. From the evidence that was provided to us, I just don't know whether it's absolutely necessary. But it would appear to be so, given the speed with which they can operate.

I was talking to an executive yesterday and he said this can now be run economically purely through a cellular system without a wire line at all, and you can literally move around while you're doing these scams. The technology is facilitating—there's literally no place of abode. Try doing a search if there's no place of abode. You can search an automobile and so on, but these things can literally be on the move. Now they may have a place of abode, but it may be a few days at a time and so forth.

Given the processes that we have, could you identify that it's happening, then get the search order, which will be an analogous process—the director is familiar with that—and then get the search conducted and grab the evidence? I think that's where the central problem lies and I think that's the source of that request for that tool, but you'd have to ask people in the bureau as to the exact background of it.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Are there any other comments?

Ms. Marnie McCall: I would agree with what Bill said.

Mr. Norman Stewart: I think somebody commented on the degree of consultation that took place with regard to wire-tapping. It was not an issue that came specifically before the task force, and that caused some people in the broader community to say maybe it should have been considered, maybe it should have been deferred to another round of looking at amendments. Nonetheless, there was consultation, although more informal than the more structured way it had gone on in the task force.

When you get beyond that issue, however, the more substantive questions that have come up from people, primarily in the business community, relate to the conspiracy element to it. So on telemarketing, very few people question that there is an application of wire-tapping there and probably should be. The questions come with regard to the conspiracy provisions, because they are saying that potentially innocent conversations could be the subject of a wire-tap.

• 1640

Other people in the business community would say there are enough checks and balances in the whole criminal process that in order to get an order to effect a wire-tap, you will need to have pretty good evidence that an offence has either been committed or is about to be committed, that you have exhausted all other ways of trying to gain the evidence, and that this is the most appropriate way to do it.

I think there is enough of a comfort level that people could get themselves to feel comfortable there, but there still may yet be room to focus that wire-tapping provision a bit more in terms of its aim within the conspiracy provisions. So there could be some element yet to refine it, and that might be one of the roles for the committee here.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: I think of the consumer first and the benefits of having it in the legislation.

Mr. Norman Stewart: From a telemarketing point of view, I think there are very few people out there who would question that there are benefits, that the offence is committed over a telephone, and that having the ability to get hard evidence—the voices of these people—it is pretty hard to argue against that. So that has to have a benefit for the people who have been subjected to those kinds of telemarketing scams in the past.

Mr. Peter Woolford: I would echo what Norm has said. Certainly within the retail community there is a recognition that this type of evidence is useful in telemarketing scams, and I think virtually all of the members that we have spoken to are quite comfortable with that. They recognize that is one of the best ways to get evidence with an industry that, as Bill has pointed out, is now highly mobile. Even if they're using land lines, they can change locations very quickly. So the whole process of getting evidence in a telemarketing scam has become very difficult for the authorities, and one way of continuing to gather a consistent package of evidence would be to use wire-taps.

The Chair: Last question, please, Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Jones is next.

Mr. Jim Jones (Markham, PC): Thank you very much.

A few years ago e-commerce on the Internet was a $200 million business, and last year it was an $8 billion business. They're guesstimating that in three years it could be a $200 billion plus business.

Marnie, you said that you felt the Internet should be included in the wire-tapping provisions. Do you have any evidence or proof about the degree of telemarketing fraud going on over the Internet?

Ms. Marnie McCall: I'm sorry, that is not quite what I said. I said that the compliance and enforcement tools in the act...that we need to be sure they will catch deceptive practices being carried out over the Internet. I wasn't specifically thinking of deceptive telemarketing—

Mr. Jim Jones: I think you can have deceptive marketing, whether it's telemarketing or Internet marketing. You can have a very interactive screen there and you can do a lot of things, and before you know it you've been induced to do something. They can get as much money out of you that way as can somebody with a live voice.

Ms. Marnie McCall: Our concern is that the language in the legislation talking about the compliance and enforcement tools is broad enough to allow electronic forms of all kinds to be caught within the net. We don't think there needs to be a law about Internet commerce. The concepts within this legislation are broad enough to catch it, provided there is nothing in the wording that would tie you to telephones or mail or a store, just to ensure that the wording doesn't allow Internet to escape.

Mr. Jim Jones: Okay.

Peter and Professor Stanbury, both of you said in your presentations that telephone communication should be live voice only. You are saying that the wording should be broad enough that it includes anything that goes over the wire.

Ms. Marnie McCall: There's a difference between the misleading advertising sections and the telemarketing sections, and my comment was directed at the misleading advertising.

• 1645

Clearly, if somebody is using Internet phone service, where you are having an actual conversation but you're using the Internet as opposed to AT&T, or whatever, make sure that's caught in the telemarketing. That should be the definition—whether it is live voice. I think the real issue with telemarketing fraud and deceptive telemarketing is that a personal relationship is created on the telephone between two people.

No matter how interactive a computer screen may be, it's like having an automated system. It's like voice mail, where I can change my newspaper or order this or that by punching the buttons. It's more akin to that kind of system and you can certainly mislead people that way. For misleading advertising and the pricing and all those other forms of misleading, the language should be reviewed to ensure that things done over the Internet can't escape being caught there. Deceptive telemarketing is a specific kind of relationship, and I think the wording of that would certainly catch people who are using Internet telephone service, if that became an issue.

The Chair: Professor Stanbury, do you wish to add to that?

Prof. William Stanbury: Yes. In general, oral representations are covered under the misleading advertising provisions as they are now, as are print and the conventional media. So I think the Internet is covered, except for the problem of jurisdiction.

Technically what you have is an Internet service provider that connects you to the net, but the server you're dealing with could easily be outside Canada. Operationally what you do is pull the information you want out of that site and into the ISP's server, and then you interact with it. You may follow that up with a telephone call, and that telephone call may well be outside the country. That's where it gets tricky—with the representations.

What's interesting about it is that you pull them to yourself. Technically speaking, that's what goes on. When you make the telephone call, that's different. So you've actually brought the bits into a Canadian jurisdiction, wherever they were originally located on a server outside the country. So you bring them right into your computer, but with a telephone call from outside the jurisdiction that's not the case. I'm not a lawyer and I can't speak to that, but it seems to me the problem will come right there—that if you try to go after them at that point, you may not be able to do it as a practical matter of jurisdiction. But you'd have to get lawyers to speak to that.

Ms. Marnie McCall: But that's no different from when you have telemarketers who are in Florida today, Georgia tomorrow and New Brunswick the next day. It's the same issue. My point was that the issues are the same, so let's make sure there are no loopholes. But we don't need a whole separate regulatory regime to govern the Internet. We simply have to make sure the tools we have—they need to be more sophisticated and we need more computer wizards who can follow these people all over and those kinds of things, but we don't need separate legislation.

The Chair: Mr. Woolford.

Mr. Peter Woolford: I have an important distinction. When the panel was looking at telemarketing, we focused on outbound calls, calls that the telemarketer made without any signal from the consumer. This was a call coming directly to me in my home. It was not initiated by me as a consumer. That's what is qualitatively different about telemarketing from all the other forms of advertising.

When I surf the net, I choose to go to that web site, I choose to read that screen, I choose to go in that direction. There is an element of initiative on the part of the consumer, just as when I read an advertisement or pick up a representation by a seller, I choose to do that.

The closest analogy I can think of is direct seller legislation, which many of the provinces have, where a direct seller comes right to the home. A lot of provinces have similar extra protection for individuals when the seller comes into the person's home, as opposed to the person either inviting a seller to the home or going to someone's business. That's because the initiative is started by the seller. In the view of the law, I think, that puts the seller in control of the relationship. They initiate it and they drive it. That's where telemarketing and direct door-to-door sales are qualitatively different from other types of transactions.

• 1650

All the other transactions—electronic, face to face, by mail, by phone—should be and we hope are covered by all of the requirements of the law under misleading practices. So if I misrepresent something on the net, if I misrepresent something in print, if I say something face to face with the consumer, that's against the law.

What is different is where, as a telemarketer, I phone someone and carry my offer to them. I was part of the special panel that dealt with telemarketing, and that's why we thought it was qualitatively different and needed these extra special layers. Plus there's Marnie's point about jurisdiction and the need to get a focused enforcement effort in this area.

The Chair: Ms. McCall, do you wish to add something else to this?

Ms. Marnie McCall: Yes, thank you.

We haven't looked at one area, and I'm not quite sure where it fits, but when someone phones or comes to the door, there's almost a psychological requirement that you answer. It's very difficult to ignore a ringing phone or somebody at your doorstep. People play on that, obviously, to get your sympathy and get some sort of friendly relationship.

Something that's in a grey area, I think, is unsolicited e-mail that invites you to respond, and where that falls. Is that akin to a direct seller or a telemarketer coming to your home, or does the fact that you have to voluntarily respond to it make it more like a customer-initiated call? As I say, I have not thought about it, we've not looked at that, and I'm not sure where that falls. That's perhaps something that ought to be looked at, to see where that might fit, especially if that unsolicited e-mail can somehow acquire information without your taking an active step in responding.

The Chair: Mr. Jones. No? Mr. Lowther.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): I have a couple of quick questions, I'm not exactly sure to whom, but perhaps to Professor Stanbury to start.

According to these new changes, would you say that the use of a wire-tap would be the last resort?

Prof. William Stanbury: In general, and because of the criteria under which the judge is to authorize it, they indicate essentially that. In other words, you'd have to demonstrate that you've tried the conventional tools already available to you, and they've been unsuccessful.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Would you see any problem with these recommended changes actually nailing that down and saying “only as a last resort”? As I read it now, it's sort of saying they've done it before, and it's up to a judge, and there must be some evidence that they've tried other things and don't think anything else will work. Why don't we just come right out and say it's only as a last resort?

Prof. William Stanbury: Yes, I agree that it isn't put literally “as a last resort”, and so on. There is a grey area where you could make the argument that we have reason to believe these other tools won't work because of the nature of the people we're up against, or the way their operation is working and so forth, so there's no point in our using these tools, and we have to go for this.

I guess it's the question of how high a threshold you want to put there before you allow authorization to use what is an intrusive tool.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Yes.

Prof. William Stanbury: That's a judgment call about how far, you know.... The crown would have to establish this in front of a judge to be able to do that.

I am worried, though, if we can identify situations a priori where it probably is the only way you're going to get the information—if you can identify those, then it would be better to put that in there. In other words, you'd include a generally last-resort provision, except in the cases where other facts can be established to suggest that that's the only practical way to get the evidence.

Mr. Eric Lowther: But wouldn't that be the same thing?

The Chair: That's okay; I think Mr. Stewart wants to answer that.

Prof. William Stanbury: Excuse me. I just have one more point.

That may well be the case, and if we can clarify that, I'm certainly not opposed to that.

Mr. Norman Stewart: I'm going to argue exactly the opposite, and you'll be astounded, because I'm a business person going to make this argument.

What this represents in the legislation here is almost an exact tracking of what's in the Criminal Code already, so you have to follow that procedure. It's basically an either/or thing. Either you go through and you demonstrate to a judge that you've tried all these things and you failed, or this is almost like a hot-pursuit kind of situation: “There isn't the time, Judge, for us to go through these things, because I know the call's going to happen in three hours' time, so I have to have your order to go and get that evidence”. As a result, we can't do what you or maybe Bill is suggesting we might want to do, because you may lose that hot-pursuit situation.

• 1655

So if I was doing my traditional business argument, I'd say, no, I'll go through all these various steps. I think we have to track exactly the way the thing works in the Criminal Code.

There is any number of other items. I know 14 or 15 different things that can have wire-taps that are already in the Criminal Code. This is just another one to be added to it.

Mr. Eric Lowther: So let me understand your argument here, if I may. You're saying that when we need to use this, it will be under such a time crunch—

Mr. Norman Stewart: It could be, not always.

Mr. Eric Lowther: —that these kinds of checks we have here, that “We tried everything else, and that hasn't worked; there are no other means, so now we want to do a wire-tap”, really won't mean anything anyway. The argument will be, “Gee, we're in a time crunch and we have to do this”. Is that what you're saying?

Mr. Norman Stewart: No, I'm saying it could be, and you would still have to demonstrate to that judge that this is reasonable and it is absolutely necessary in order to gain the evidence. It's not as if you can go in there on a flyer and just say, “Okay, I've disregarded all my other tools I have under the legislation to gain evidence, so, Judge, give me that order”. No. You'll still have to go, even if it's a time-sensitive thing. You're going to have to demonstrate that there is a real need, because hot wire-tapping is a very intrusive thing.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Yes, I hear you. I guess I'm not saying that we change what's here, but I'm wondering why we couldn't strengthen it to actually put it right in words—all this, and only as a last resort.

Let me go on to another item here. In today's world, with telemarketing and some of the things that go on there, it's not always in a telemarketing shop. I think we've talked somewhat about this. Sometimes they do it on contract out of a person's home.

I'm just wondering about the kinds of things involving invasion of privacy, where you may have private calls on that line, where they sign on to do contract work or something. You're now tapping that line for telemarketing purposes, but you're also picking up a private exchange that could be beyond that.

Does this address that, or is that just too bad? Is that part of the territory?

Mr. Norman Stewart: Again, that can happen in any wire-tap situation. You have to demonstrate to the judge the evidence that you're after, what you think this call is going to be all about.

In the end the judge is going to have to draw a conclusion that, yes, I'm prepared to authorize this wire-tap, but once it's put in place, sure, other things could be taking place on that phone line. That's just a natural fallout of wire-tapping.

I have great faith in the judicial system, and I've spent half a lifetime working in it, one way or another. I have great faith in the reasonableness of the judge, when confronted by a request from the bureau and the Attorney General for a wire-tap, that they'll apply good judgment to it.

Mr. Eric Lowther: But haven't we crossed—

The Chair: Ms. McCall would also like to respond.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Sorry.

The Chair: We should let everyone answer. Okay?

Ms. Marnie McCall: Thank you.

As I understand it, the provisions of the Criminal Code are being incorporated exactly as they are into the Competition Act. There is a long history of judicial interpretation of the wire-tap provisions.

In the Criminal Code there is a big body of case law built up on when it's appropriate and when it's not appropriate to tap a private home. Generally speaking, that is a last resort as well. If there are business premises where calls can be intercepted, the judge will order that before a private home.

There is a long, evolving history since the wire-tap provisions came in during the mid-1970s. I assume that one of the reasons for incorporating those Criminal Code provisions was also to get the benefit of that history with the actual working....

There have been something fewer than 500 wire-taps authorized in Canada since the legislation came in in 1976. It is very difficult to get a wire-tap in this country. It's not at all difficult in the United States. It's quite simple to get a wire-tap there. It's very, very difficult here. I don't think the fact that the director of investigation or the competition commissioner is going to have an easier ride than other law enforcement....

That obviously doesn't erase your concern about when it involves individuals working out of their own homes. That issue has been sensitive for a number of years, and I believe there is significant case law on that.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Okay, so you're basically saying we've had a good record, so it doesn't really matter if we move into this new realm, where we're sort of hoping that our track record of the past will cover us in the future. I guess what I'm concerned about is that I'm not sure we have that confidence there.

• 1700

Ms. Marnie McCall: To put it another way, I don't believe anything in the Competition Act takes away from the power to charge pure fraud under the Criminal Code. If the director didn't have this power, a wire-tap could be applied for under the fraud provisions of the Criminal Code.

In essence, I don't think it's adding; it's streamlining procedures and keeping all related items within the same legislation. There would be alternative ways, perhaps, to pursue some of these offences under Criminal Code provisions.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Today, without this, if one of the two parties acknowledges that, yes, there's going to be a wire-tap here, or that someone will be listening, people can listen to these calls—correct? Even today, if you advise one of the two parties, that's okay.

Ms. Marnie McCall: That's my understanding—if one end consents. I believe that's correct.

Mr. Eric Lowther: So if what we're concerned about is a misleading kind of activity in a competitive sense, or this kind of activity, isn't it enough to simply say we're going to phone in on this number, and we'll have our agent or person who's working for us phone in and see what happens?

In the case of outbound calls, that might be the only exception, I guess, where you can't control who you're going to bump into.

Mr. Peter Woolford: Remember, that's the focus of telemarketing. It's not inbound, it's outbound.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Not always.

Mr. Peter Woolford: That is the focus of this part of the legislation. The panel agreed to it. The overwhelming problem is with outbound calls initiated by the seller. So we don't know where those calls are going.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Are we saying that this does not impact inbound calls?

Mr. Peter Woolford: You don't know where those calls are going.

Mr. Eric Lowther: But if it's inbound calls, can we still tap those with this?

Mr. Peter Woolford: If it's a conspiracy or bid-rigging case, you might well.

Mr. Eric Lowther: But my point is, why would you need to? You can be an informed person who calls in, on the side of the investigator, and still get the information without licensing wire-taps.

I'm concerned a little bit, as you can probably pick up here, about the trust we're putting in the judiciary and the director to say, yes, let's go and be intrusive and listen to calls. With the nature of telemarketing today, a lot of what you're going to hear are private conversations that have nothing to do with telemarketing.

Mr. Peter Woolford: But that's now how fraudulent telemarketers work. They don't wait for calls to come in. I think if they got an incoming call, that would be a really strange signal to them.

Mr. Eric Lowther: If that's the case, why do we protect that in here?

Mr. Peter Woolford: They buy sucker lists. They develop highly specialized lists of people they know are susceptible, and those are the numbers they call.

Mr. Eric Lowther: But these changes are not specific to outbound calls, are they? They don't differentiate inbound from outbound. Maybe some of that needs to be clarified here before we open the door to wire-tapping on this kind of scenario.

Mr. Peter Woolford: But remember, telemarketing deals with outbound calls.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I would debate that with you, sir. I'd say telemarketing is inbound and outbound. You can put out a bogus flyer that looks very enticing and have people call in. Once you have that relationship, you can do the same thing.

Mr. Peter Woolford: In that case, you'd probably find the bureau would deal with it as a misleading representation.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Well, I'm saying it would be nice if it were in here.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lowther.

[Translation]

Do you have another question, madame Lalonde?

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Yes.

I would like to come back to the issue of the Commissioner's power. I have only received a partial answer when I was told that the Department of Justice would obviously be consulted on the decision to proceed but that the Commissioner would be the only one to decide not to proceed. He will have this power. Let's not forget that his boss is the Minister of Industry—whoever that person will be. So, on his own or upon request of the Minister, the Commissioner could decide not to proceed.

It seems that you have recommended in your report that everybody should be allowed to initiate proceedings, as in the U.S. Could you tell me if all the members of the Panel agreed with that recommendation or if major corporations were opposed to it?

• 1705

[English]

Ms. Marnie McCall: The Consumers' Association was certainly in favour of opening that and allowing private initiation of prosecution.

Prof. William Stanbury: Yes, I was in favour of private access to the Competition Tribunal. We're not talking criminal law here. We're talking access to the Competition Tribunal.

Indeed, I would like to see, in the case of section 75, that the director no longer have authority to take those kinds of cases. I think that is an utter anomaly in the act, and I can give you details of that, if you like. I would favour private access, particularly where the director has not acted or proposes not to act. It seems to me that if private parties want to act, they should be free to do so.

[Translation]

Mr. Peter Woolford: Obviously, the representatives of corporations look at the U.S. experience where numerous companies and individuals have used that right to harass corporations. This was a major concern.

In our report, we stated that we would be willing to discuss this matter in a second round. We believe that this power would pose rather serious problems but we are quite willing to talk about it in the near future.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Stewart.

Mr. Norman Stewart: Just following up on what Mr. Woolford said, that was the overall consensus of the group. And when we say consensus, we had a great debate over that—what is consensus? Is consensus unanimity, or is it majority rule or whatever?

Whatever it is, it was the consensus of the group that it deserved further study. We gave criteria as to the things that should be looked at, the kinds of issues that would be key in any kind of private access kind of regime.

So there are things like the role of the director in a private case, and the cost rules in a private case—should interveners be allowed in, are damages really part of that kind of a process, these kinds of things. Then we said it deserved further study. Some study has been done. A preliminary interim report was released by the bureau just to seek further comment, and I'm sure you'll see further things on this, come the future. It's an issue I'm sure will still be up for discussion, but not as part of this round.

The Chair: Mr. Woolford, we don't want to keep you here and have you miss your plane. We know there's a lot of construction in the downtown area, so please feel free to go whenever you have to.

Mr. Peter Woolford: Are there other questions specifically for me?

The Chair: Well, I'm sure it can go on for hours.

Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: For two days.

I understand your final comments but the fact is that the only safeguard is trust. In drafting legislation, one normally provides for safeguards that are not necessarily based on the trust one has in a person that will in any case change. This is why I said "independent of the minister or of the director". We live in world where mergers happen very quickly and where competition, which was the catchword of capitalism, is the foremost objective because we are living in a period that resembles the end of the Industrial Revolution. It seems to me that, with all the talk of MAI, lots of work will have to done. We will have to make sure that we protect the trust of consumers and of small- and medium-sized companies, which we have not talked about but who are being pushed out from the markets by all sorts of practices.

That is why I keep thinking that this is far from satisfactory. My reservations have nothing to do with the persons involved, since that is not my concern, but with the rights protected by legislation.

• 1710

[English]

The Chair: Is there any comment to that? Professor Stanbury.

Prof. William Stanbury: I have a couple of factual points. The minister has a very limited role when it comes to the enforcement of the Competition Act. He can bring a complaint or an inquiry or request an investigation. He can't stop one that the director has undertaken. When the director wants to discontinue, he can ask that the director go back, think it over and perhaps continue the investigation. Remember that the director's a law enforcement official and we'd want to keep the politicians out of the direct decisions. They set the framework, but not the individual operation of the law enforcement process.

The next thing to note is that if you're going to proceed criminally here under the dual civil and criminal, the Department of Justice has to make the decision whether or not to bring the prosecution. I've documented in various studies that in about 85% of cases the recommendation of the director results in a prosecution. But in about 15% of the cases, the Department of Justice doesn't think the evidence is good enough, and so forth, and will not proceed. If that were the case in a misleading advertising provision, the director could not go back and proceed civilly. Once he commits himself to the criminal track, that's it; he either goes all the way or it stops wherever it stops. You can't go the other way.

Let me go back to the civil side. Even where he chooses to go civilly, he still has to instruct counsel, usually provided by the Department of Justice, to actually bring the application in front of a court or the tribunal. So there's a second review that goes on in all of these cases. In this way, the act is actually a little bit deceiving, frankly, because it speaks upon the director making an application. Formally that is so, but the director only gets counsel from the Department of Justice or a person appointed by the Department of Justice.

So there's a two-stage review of the process there in every case, civilly and criminally, and that part isn't changing at all. So I just emphasize that to you.

The Chair: Thank you. Thank you, Madame Lalonde.

Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was going to say, along the same lines as Professor Stanbury, that the minister does not interfere with the director. Legislation like Bill C-20 comes through the minister, is tabled and brought here, and Parliament approves it. The director takes it from there and reports to Parliament. The amount of discussion that goes on between the director and the minister is very limited and it's mainly on the policy side, like we have today in Bill C-20.

I heard that the minister was redirecting the director to do certain things and so forth. That's not right. That's not true. He only acts as a go-between for the legislation, like we have today. Professor Stanbury clarified it.

The Chair: Professor Stanbury, do you wish to add to that?

Prof. William Stanbury: Yes. The minister has two official powers. One is that he can request that the director undertake an investigation. That could end the next day if the director says there's no evidence here, or alternatively, the act doesn't apply to that particular kind of behaviour you're concerned about.

Second, where the director wants to discontinue an inquiry, the minister can ask him to go back and reinvestigate or pursue the investigation. If, after a day or a week or whatever, the director says, “I've thought about it again, I've examined it again, and I want to discontinue it.” then it will be discontinued and that's the end of the story.

But there's a third place, and it's not in the act as such. This is where the minister is very influential in setting the budget, because the Competition Bureau is part of Industry Canada. Obviously it's a complex budgeting process, but the minister is very important in that process, and I would argue they need to fight harder to put more money into this role and function.

This has been a problem of law enforcement agencies generally in this country, and also at the provincial level. I'm getting very concerned and will leave with the committee a copy of my study, which goes through that in some detail and draws that conclusion.

I'm usually on the side of cutting back on government, privatizing it and deregulating, but in this case I think we have cut beyond the bone, and therefore I'm advocating more money for these functions, partly because the responsibilities are expanding. We're deregulating a lot over at the CRTC, for example, and more jurisdiction is passing from the CRTC to the Competition Bureau, but no more dollars have been transferred over. No more people have been transferred over to take on those responsibilities.

• 1715

So I'm worried that we're already under-enforcing the law. As I say, I provide what I think is pretty good documentation to support that.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Good point. I appreciate that.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Schmidt, you have a final question.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a very short question. It has to do with the response we got on e-mail and whether that constitutes an interpersonal relationship here.

I think earlier your suggestion was that you want the definition of telemarketing to be changed so that it says “live”. How would this actually shift the definition to a new category?

Ms. Marnie McCall: That was Mr. Woolford.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I thought you said it too. If I was wrong, my apologies.

Ms. Marnie McCall: I might have said it later in a response. There is a difference between dealing with somebody face to face or on the telephone, live, and dealing with them by mail or by some other paper or screen process.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Oh, I agree.

Ms. Marnie McCall: There is some rationale for treating them somewhat differently. I think the deceptive telemarketing provisions do address that issue of the ease with which you can build a rapport with someone you're speaking to, especially more vulnerable people. The misleading advertising general provisions apply no matter what the mode is.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's what we're talking about. I'm referring specifically to the definition of telemarketing as it is found in clause 13 of the bill, which adds proposed section 52.1 to the existing act. It's the definition of telemarketing there.

I think the suggestion was made by Peter and by Professor Stanbury that we should talk there about live. I would like to know what that does.

Prof. William Stanbury: Actually, I picked that up. It was a clarification that was proposed in the director's proposed guidelines, I'll call them, where he was saying that in his understanding of how that was to be used, it would refer to live voice calls, not fax, Internet, automated prerecorded messages or a customer-initiated call to a customer relations line. In other words, although it does not say that in the act, that is the way he is proposing to interpret it.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Sure. I think that's fine if he can interpret it that way, but I have great misgivings about writing that type of thing into the act, and I'll tell you why I have misgivings. People are changing, and as the technology improves and we become more familiar with e-mail, particularly, that personal relationship, while it hasn't been studied in any great depth.... I don't see how you could, because it hasn't been around long enough. To put that in here now would automatically exclude that, and I think that would be a restriction we wouldn't want in here.

I think the definition that's in here is okay, and I was really surprised when that suggestion came forward to make it live.

Prof. William Stanbury: I was simply trying to clarify how that was to be interpreted. I'm sorry. I'm not advocating putting it in the legislation.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: But I think somebody did say that.

Ms. Marnie McCall: Mr. Woolford did.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I know the Canadian Bar Association did exactly the same thing. That's what they want. We had the same problem with them.

That's all, thanks.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Schmidt.

To add to that, I believe Ms. McCall mentioned earlier that you can't have an interactive relationship via the Internet. I disagree with that strongly—

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I do too.

The Chair: —based on the chat lines and based on the fact that people are getting married after they have only spoken through the chat lines and through e-mail.

I think unsolicited e-mail is definitely a problem. I also think the chat line, although it may start out as a regular relationship, could result in unsolicited advertising or selling over the chat line. Although you may have initiated the original call, you may not have initiated the beginning of a sales relationship.

So I'm really concerned that we keep talking about live voice. I don't think our laws should be limited to what exists in 1998, knowing that we're looking at interactive communication via the computer screen, which is going to have people showing there, talking to each other, very shortly. It's already available in some areas via satellite.

So I'm concerned that this live voice keeps coming up and we're opening ourselves up to a whole new realm of problems.

Ms. Marnie McCall: I certainly didn't intend to say that you cannot be interactive with a computer screen or a Touch-Tone system. It's a different kind of interaction from a verbal one.

• 1720

Our last recommendation was that all the compliance and enforcement tools in the act be reviewed to ensure they encompass things that might happen on the Internet, they don't allow escape, and they be flexible enough to adapt generally as new modes of commerce come into being.

So we completely share your concern, and I agree with your point that if we put live voice into the legislative provision instead of leaving it to the interpretive guidelines, we may tie ourselves as things evolve in the future. We're completely in sympathy with that and believe framework legislation must be flexible enough to cover new ways of doing things.

The Chair: Just so you know, I have difficulty, even in the interpretive guidelines, with suggesting it be restricted to live voice. I'm concerned that we're allowing the interpretive guidelines to limit the application of the law, whereas some of us are saying there needs to be a broader understanding of where we're going with telecommunications and with what's going to happen through sales.

There was a company on the Hill just last week talking about how you will be able to buy things through your television or computer. You'll be able to stick your own credit card into your own little machine in your home and you won't talk to a soul. So who will be responsible for any type of problems there? I'm really concerned.

I'm also concerned about the issue of jurisdiction and where we're going, and the fact the Internet doesn't have a lot of laws per se that apply to it. How they apply becomes a large issue and we're just very concerned. We know, after our copyright legislation in the last Parliament, we need to move into the next phase with regard to the Internet very quickly.

Ms. Marnie McCall: I think the issues around the Internet—and I want to repeat this because I think for many people the Internet is seen as something different—are implementation issues. It's a method of communication. It's a way of getting information from point A to point B, the same as the postal system, and the issues are the same. I think there's a tendency to want to treat them differently and regulate it differently, and we have to find more appropriate ways of implementing the legislation we already have that applies on a broad basis.

I'm not suggesting, by any stretch of the imagination, that's easy to do, but it's going to get more complicated if we have one set of rules for the Internet, one set for mail order, and one set for something like web TV, which is sort of half and half. We need to keep a framework that will apply to whatever magic new ways people think up to do things.

Again, this is not something my organization has looked at, but one of the ways of categorizing, if categorizing is needed, is between real-time interaction and stored or passive interaction. That's one way where you don't get tied up in the method. Is somebody actually responding to you back and forth, or are you simply punching buttons or filling out a form that's passive? That doesn't necessarily get at plugging my credit card into my television on the Home Shopping Network. I don't know what that is. It's passive in one sense, but my money coming off my credit card is in real time. These are very complicated issues and we need to try to make sure we have the tools that are flexible enough to address new things as they come up.

The Chair: Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jim Jones: I would like to continue what you brought up and I brought up earlier. E-commerce is going to grow to $200 billion to $400 billion in the next few years, and this had better cover that, because by the time we wake up they won't be prodding $4 billion a year, they'll be taking about $50 billion a year.

The Chair: We know that criminals are always a couple of steps ahead of the law, so they're ahead of new technology as well.

Ms. McCall.

Ms. Marnie McCall: One of the things we can't forget here is that consumers not only have rights that need to be respected and we need to have frameworks to make sure their rights are respected, but consumers also have responsibilities. One of the things you were given today is a pamphlet called “Be a Wise Consumer” and it explains both the rights and the corresponding responsibilities. It's very important that in looking at how we address misleading advertising in all of these things, we also consider how to help consumers defend themselves from these fraud artists. How do we educate consumers about how to use these new methods in ways where they're not exposing themselves to the risk of fraud? I think that's really important.

• 1725

We don't spend nearly enough time and attention giving consumers the tools to protect themselves, because that's obviously the best defence. If people don't engage in practices that allow them to be defrauded, you've solved a huge amount of the problem. But they have to know how to protect themselves.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: This is why consumers' associations should get more support than at the present time.

[English]

Ms. Marnie McCall: I hope everyone here is a member.

The Chair: We want to thank you all for being with us today. We also want to thank you for the work you did on the consultative panel over the years you've worked on it, for keeping up to date and for being part of our committee hearings. We will do our best to try to ensure it's at least through the House side of legislation before we break in June, as best we can.

We are concerned that we not rush through it, because there are some concerns about wire-tapping and other issues that have been raised by some witnesses before you, and other witnesses who will be coming next week. We're trying to deal with them as well as an issue of whistle-blowing that may be added to the legislation or come forward as an amendment.

We want to thank you for being with us and for taking time out of your schedules. I just want to let committee members know we do not have a meeting at 5.30 p.m. If you didn't receive that amended notice, our meeting is tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. for the report we're discussing. At 9 o'clock tomorrow morning we have a meeting with regard to the statistics on banking credit.

We don't have a translated copy yet, so we're not distributing the report. Is that what she's asking about?

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: No. I want to know if we will have a text by tomorrow afternoon, so that we can work on it. It would be much better because...

[English]

The Chair: We don't have a translated text yet to distribute, so until we have a full translation it can't be distributed. Our hope is we'll be able to distribute the text at the end of the morning meeting, if it's ready, so everyone will get it at the same time. We will go through it as best we can tomorrow afternoon. If we don't resolve it tomorrow afternoon I will understand. We haven't had a chance to look at it.

Again, I want to thank our witnesses. The meeting is now adjourned.