Combines Investigation Act

The Combines Investigation Act was a Canadian Act of Parliament, implemented in 1910, passed in 1923 by MacKenzie King, which regulated certain corporate business practices that were anti-competitive. It prohibited monopolies, misleading advertising, bid-rigging, price fixing, and other means of limiting competition. It was revised in 1952 and amended in 1969 by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69. It was a rather notorious piece of legislation in Canadian constitutional law for the powers it granted to non-police officers to enter private premises without a judicially issued search warrant and seize evidence that they suspected were in relation to a violation of the Act. This culminated in a raid of the offices of the Edmonton Journal and the ensuing Supreme Court decision in Hunter v Southam Inc, where provisions of the Act were held to be inoperative in light of the recently enacted Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' section 8 protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The Act was eventually repealed in July 1986 and replaced with the Competition Act.