Is the Competition Bureau finally ready to look at other policy issues?

The roles of the Competition Bureau and the CRTC have, for the most part, tended to be separate and distinct. Each agency is, after all, mandated by separate and generally distinct pieces of legislation. Some overlap is unavoidable. The Competition Act has a stated purpose of maintaining and encouraging competition in order to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy. Compare this purpose with one of the stated objectives of the Tele-communications Act, i.e. "to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness, at the national and international levels, of Canadian telecommunications". Although somewhat broader in scope, the Broadcasting Act also has a system objective of safeguarding, enriching and strengthening the economic fabric of Canada as well as being readily adaptable to scientific and technological change. Over the years, the bureau has appeared before the commission during various proceedings to offer its views on how competition in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors might best be achieved. The commission, it seems, has tended to receive the bureau’s input politely, but with a perceptible lack of enthusiasm. The problem with the bureau’s interventions, according to some observers, is its sole, unwavering focus on economic efficiency concerns. Others, including myself, see that as a strength. Other policy objectives are clearly relevant to CRTC deliberations, but why not utilize the agency which is most-practiced in competition analysis? This doesn’t diminish other policy objectives so much as providing better analysis in one particular policy area. It is interesting to note that the United States has not one, not two, but three agencies which have some responsibility for competition issues in the communications industries. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission both employ scads of lawyers and economists for the examination of competition concerns, often finding themselves involved in the larger broadcast/telecom files of the day (e.g. AOL/Time-Warner). Throw in the Federal Communications Commission and determining who has "prime responsibility" can be difficult to untangle. With Canada’s so-called "non-economic cultural" concerns standing in contrast to the U.S.’s "strictly economic" policy orientation, I was encouraged to hear Joel Klein, former assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice state last week that efficiency objectives are not the only valid public policy objectives. While he stressed that antitrust laws should not be the vehicle for achieving non-efficiency objectives, he did note that those objectives could be legitimately addressed through other legislative or different means. And then he noted, in particular, that diversity in media sources or ensuring different voices was an objective which he supported. Déjà vu with a non-Canadian twist. At the same time that Klein was acknowledging a greater scope for U.S. policies, the Competition Bureau was staking out new territory in the Canadian broadcast sector. Following an examination by the bureau into the Quebecor purchase of Groupe Vidéotron, Quebecor decided to sell its existing stake in TQS, one of the French-language television networks. The result of the divestiture order, according to the bureau, will be to "maintain competition in the sale of French-language television advertising time in Quebec". Nor is the bureau’s examination of the Groupe Vidéotron acquisition necessarily complete. The bureau warns that other elements of the deal are still under review. There has been an ongoing debate in communications policy circles about the proper role of the commission versus the bureau. As of last week, the boundaries changed. Dr. Gerry Wall is president of Wall Communications and publisher of Decima Publishing.

Is the Competition Bureau finally ready to look at other policy issues?

Broadcast | November 23, 2000

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