Throne Speech Promises Big Changes To Canada´s Competition And Foreign Investment Regimes

Canada's 40th Parliament opened on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 with the traditional Speech from the Throne, outlining the government's legislative priorities. In keeping with the turbulent economic times and with calls for greater supervision of business, the throne speech promised to "proceed with legislation to modernize our competition and investment laws, implementing many of the recommendations of the Competition Policy Review Panel."

Given the apparent trend toward the significant strengthening of competition law enforcement in Canada, as well as the loosening of the foreign investment review regime (while at the same time, in all likelihood, empowering the government to reject foreign investments on "national security" grounds), the business and legal communities in Canada and abroad will be keenly interested in future legislative announcements.