Consumer and Corporate Affairs

Consumer and Corporate Affairs

The Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs was established in 1967 to bring together under one minister the administering of federal policies regulating the marketplace. Its responsibilities included consumer affairs; corporations and corporate securities; combines, mergers, monopolies and restraint of trade; bankruptcy and insolvency; patents, copyrights, trademarks and industrial design; and programs designed to promote the interests of Canadian consumers. The minister, as registrar general of Canada, was the custodian of the Great Seal of Canada, Privy Seal of the governor general and the seals of the administrator and registrar general of Canada. The department's Bureau of Competition Policy included the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission; the Bureau of Consumer Affairs was concerned with the fair treatment of consumers in the marketplace; the Bureau of Corporate Affairs regulated much of the legal framework in which business operates. In 1993 the department was dismantled in a structural overhaul of the government and its responsibilities delegated to other departments.