The Constitutionality of Canada's New Competition Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the major constitutional issues raised by the recent legislative initiatives of the Federal government designed to implement a new competition policy for Canada. The first phase of those initiatives was incorporated in major amendments to the Combines Investigation Act which came into force in 1976. The second phase was laid before Parliament, just as this paper was being written, on March 15, 1977, in the form of Bill C-42.3 Hereinafter these two pieces of legislation will be referred to as the Act and the Bill respectively.