Vital updates:

• Today, the Competition Bureau signed a new competition enforcement framework with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the New Zealand Commerce Commission, the United Kingdom Competition & Markets Authority, the United States Department of Justice and the United States Federal Trade Commission. The Multilateral Mutual Assistance and Cooperation Framework for Competition Authorities (MMAC) will improve the Bureau’s ability to cooperate with these five counterparts in an increasingly digital and global economy. The MMAC will enable its signatories to cooperate more effectively on investigations, share their experiences and work on joint projects, including inter-organizational training initiatives. The MMAC also includes a template that agencies can use to establish bilateral or multilateral cooperation instruments focused on investigative assistance, like sharing confidential information and cross-border evidence gathering.
• The Ontario government is partnering with public transit operators across the province to implement measures aimed at ensuring that transit workers and passengers can safely and confidently take public transit. The government has distributed comprehensive health and safety guidance documents and is providing significant funding to cover lost revenue, enhanced cleaning and other costs incurred because of COVID-19. The Ontario and federal governments are providing up to $2 billion to 110 municipalities with transit systems as part of the Safe Restart Agreement.

Reading recommendations:

• COVID-19 divide: ‘Northern wall’ between U.S., Canada could stay up longer than anyone expected, Paula Newton, CTV News
• Latin America’s COVID-19 Nightmare: Lessons From the World’s Hardest-Hit Region, Diana Enriquez, Sebastián Rojas Cabal, Miguel A. Centeno, Foreign Affairs
• In Canada, airlines face uphill climb to replace quarantines with COVID-19 testing, Allison Lampert, Allison Martell, Reuters