October 30, 2012 – The C.D. Howe Institute today announced the appointment of Lawson A.W. Hunter, Q.C., LL.D., as a Senior Fellow specializing in regulatory and competition policy.
A longtime associate of the Institute, Mr. Hunter is Counsel in the Competition and Foreign Investment Group at Stikeman Elliott LLP.
“Lawson’s experience and advice is a tremendous asset in understanding Canadian public policy, and his is a terrific voice to have in the competition policy arena,” said Finn Poschmann, the Institute’s VP Research and chair of the Institute’s Competition Policy Council, of which Mr. Hunter is a member. The Council provides expert, independent analysis of emerging competition policy issues, including those potentially faced by the Competition Bureau.
Lawson Hunter is one of Canada’s pre-eminent regulatory and government relations counsel, drawing on a wide range of experience in business, government and private practice and was recently noted by Global Competition Review as “one of the pre-eminent names on the Canadian antitrust scene.”
Formerly Canada’s senior civil servant in charge of competition policy and enforcement, Mr. Hunter was primarily responsible for the drafting of the federal Competition Act. From 1993 to 2003, he was a partner of Stikeman Elliott and head of the firm's Competition and Foreign Investment Group. From 2003 to 2008, he served as executive vice-president and chief corporate officer of Bell Canada and BCE Inc., where he was responsible for overseeing regulatory, governmental relations and corporate affairs. In September 2008, he rejoined the Ottawa office of Stikeman Elliott as counsel. From April 2010 to May 2012, Mr. Hunter assumed the role of head of the Competition and Foreign Investment Group and recently returned to his role as counsel.
Mr. Hunter was recently honoured with Lexpert's Zenith Award: Celebrating Leadership Through Change, recognizing lawyers who have been change-agents in their profession for forty or more years. He was recently granted an Honorary Doctorate of Laws Degree (L.L.D.) from the University of New Brunswick. With respect to his service as chair of Stikeman Elliott's competition practice, Chambers Global described him as “the jewel in this leading practice's crown” and the “pre-eminent competition lawyer in Canada” and as the “first choice for competition law in Canada”, noting his “important political connections.” Mr. Hunter was also named one of the World’s Top 20 competition and antitrust lawyers by The Best of the Best. And, with his vast knowledge of policy and regulation, he is recognized as a “pre-eminent” figure in the competition bar by Who’s Who Legal 100.
In 2011 he co-authored the C.D. Howe Institute study Scrambled Signals: Canadian Content Policies in a World of Technological Abundance with Professors (and C.D. Howe Institute fellows) Edward Iacobucci and Michael J. Trebilcock. To read the study, please click here.
For more information on the Competition Policy Council, please click here.
The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to raise living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. It is Canada’s trusted source of essential policy intelligence, distinguished by research that is nonpartisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review. It is considered by many to be Canada’s most influential think tank.
Media contact: James Fleming. 416-865-1904