Opening statement to the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy: Competition is critical to building a stronger, more affordable economy

Remarks by Matthew Chiasson, Senior Policy Advisor, Competition Promotion Branch

Meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy

December 4, 2025

Ottawa, Ontario

Good morning Mr. Chair and Honourable Senators.

Thank you for having us here today. My name is Matthew Chiasson. I am a Senior Policy Advisor at the Competition Bureau.

I’m joined today by my colleagues, Anthony Durocher, Deputy Commissioner of our Competition Promotion Branch; and Josephine Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of our Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate.

As many of you know, the Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency that protects and promotes competition for the benefit of Canadian consumers and businesses. We administer and enforce Canada’s Competition Act, a law of general application that applies to all sectors of the economy.

We have a dual enforcement and advocacy role under our legislation. As an enforcer, we review mergers and investigate anti-competitive business practices like abuse of dominance, price fixing and deceptive marketing. As an advocate, we conduct market studies and provide advice to policymakers on how to design competition-friendly rules and regulations.

In our view, competition is critical to building a stronger, more affordable economy.

Budget 2025 contains a suite of competition-related measures, which are described as early, meaningful steps to increase competition and drive down costs in key sectors with more to come. The government has also indicated that it intends to be “hawkish” on competition with all parts of government involved. Needless to say, we strongly support this direction.

You have invited us to speak specifically about Divisions 9 and 43 of Bill C-15, which are the changes relating to the Consumer-Driven Banking Act, and to some of the greenwashing provisions contained in the Competition Act, respectively. I’ll briefly address each of these in turn.

With respect to consumer-driven banking - sometimes called open banking - these reforms are consistent with the Bureau’s longstanding advice. They will strengthen competition and innovation in our financial sector by creating a framework within which consumers can safely and securely share their data. This will make it easier for consumers to switch providers and access innovative new services, which means that banks will have to work harder to keep customers happy.

You will see that competition considerations are expressly hardwired into this legislation - in the purpose, in the Bank of Canada’s listed objectives as the regulator, and in various aspects of the regime. Of course, many details will be set out in follow-on regulation and the Bureau will continue to provide independent competition advice as needed.  

With respect to the greenwashing provisions in the bill, we understand that these changes are intended to provide more certainty to the marketplace while maintaining protections against certain false or misleading environmental claims.

If these changes become law, businesses making environmental claims will still need to be able to back them up with adequate and proper substantiation. But this substantiation will no longer need to be based specifically on an “internationally recognized methodology”. And, if these changes come into effect, we will align our guidelines accordingly.

The changes also remove the ability of third parties to bring greenwashing complaints directly to the Competition Tribunal under this amended greenwashing provision. However, they can still bring such claims under other deceptive marketing provisions with different tests.

Before fielding your questions, I would note that the law requires the Bureau to conduct its investigations in private and to keep confidential the information we have. This obligation may prevent us from discussing certain facets of our investigations or even the existence of certain investigations.

Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.