Competition Bureau to Investigate Canadian Real Estate Association

The Star reports that the Bureau is investigating whether the Canadian Real Estate Association has engaged in anticompetitive behaviour to make it difficult for discount brokerages (including online realtors) to operate. On Saturday, CREA decided at its AGM to go ahead with changes to its rules that the Bureau asserts have and will restrict access to the MLS database. Discounters say that the rules prevent them from posting inexpensive listings on MLS. This is the last great category of consumer services that hasn’t yet made it online. It isn’t online yet because realtors understand what the unrestricted flow of information on the internet does to middlemen.