E03: Where did we start? What did MacKenzie King think?
E03: Going back to a paper written by William Lyon MacKenzie King, we can learn some of the thought processes behind passing the Combines Investigation Act, the precursor to the Competition Act. MacKenzie King was the Minister of Labour of Canada when the Combines Investigation Act was passed by Parliament. This was before he was Prime Minister three times.
We can see they modelled the Combines Investigation Act after the Industrial Disputes Act. We also learn the three principles Canadian competition policy was initially built on were:
1) Combines and businesses will always put the interests of their investors and owners above others.
2) Government's role is to ensure that combines are not able to amass power and dominate the public.
3) Publicity of bad acts can be enough to discourage those actions.
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