“Well Made Here” to Speak on Unfair Competition

The CEO of “Well Made Here” will be part of the closing panel of a national symposium organized by the University of Ottawa on the need to update the Competition Act. The event will take place on June 12 and 13. Click here to participate for free.

One of the questions Richard Darveau will boldly ask pertains to the unequal footing on which Canadian-made products, adhering to labor, construction, and environmental standards, stand compared to the dumping of often Asian products that struggle to guarantee the same standards. “Is it healthy and reasonable to allow them into our territory?” he will question.

Another issue Darveau intends to defend at the symposium concerns hardware stores and other retailers. They are accused of collusion, without evidence, when they attempt to coordinate within the same region to offer customers more shopping hours, not fewer. Knowing that each store tries to open a few hours less to retain their employees, it would be desirable for a revision of the law to prevent the Competition Bureau from prosecuting them for collusion when their communication efforts are aimed at ensuring the public has maximum access to one or another of the hardware stores in the same area.

We will revisit the symposium in the next newsletter.