BIG WINNER

Melanie Aitken

The heap of her victims is wide and deep: airlines, real estate agents, telecom giants, credit card companies. Aitken has made ample use of an enhanced Competition Act, beefed up just prior to her appointment as commissioner of the Competition Bureau in 2009, litigating without hesitation or remorse. Through determination, she has transformed the sleepy, anonymous bureau into a swaggering crusader, meting out revenge on behalf of long-suffering consumers.

This year she dragged Air Canada before the federal Competition Tribunal, aiming to block its proposed merger with the huge United Continental on the grounds the deal would result in higher prices on important transborder routes. She attacked the Toronto Real Estate Board, which she alleges denied consumers full access to its property listings service. She extracted a $10-million fine from Bell Canada, which for years charged higher-than-advertised prices for telecom services. And she wants Rogers (which owns this magazine) to pay the same amount in penance for asserting its cut-rate cellular service drops fewer calls than its competitors.

Aitken also piled onto actions initiated by America’s Federal Trade Commission against consumer-products marketers for making misleading representations. Skin-care brand Nivea, for one, got creamed for claiming one of its products slimmed and reshaped users’ bodies. The brand’s unrepentant owner, Beiersdorf, found out the hard way not to cross Aitken. After settling, it told the public and media that its claims were actually backed by independent research—thereby violating its consent agreement with the Competition Bureau. An irritated Aitken swatted the company again.

Aitken has yet to suffer a resounding defeat. Should that happen, her personal philosophy has her well prepared to cope with it. “Any decision is a win-win,” she proclaimed during a speech in May, “as it will further clarify the law.”

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Nov 29, 2011 CB Staff 0

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Nov 29, 2011 CB Staff 0

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