Kristen McLean joins Counterfactual host Julia Potter of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP to provide insights into her background and role at the Competition Bureau in this next episode of the new “Better Know the Bureau” series.
In this episode of the Counterfactual podcast, we hear from Kristen McLean, a Senior Competition Law Officer in the Monopolistic Practices Branch about her background and role within the Competition Bureau. This is the latest episode of the new “Better Know the Bureau” series where we “demystify” the Competition Bureau and better get to know the people that make up the Competition Bureau.
This episode also includes a “sneak peak” of the CBA Competition Law Section’s upcoming Spring Conference taking place May 8 in Toronto. Register here: https://www.cbapd.org/details_en.aspx?id=na_na25com01a.
00:29
Julia Potter
Hello, and welcome to Counterfactual, the official podcast of the Canadian Bar Association's Competition Law and Foreign Investment Review section. My name is Julia Potter. I'm a partner in the Competition and Foreign Investment Group at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, and I will be your host. This is our second installment of our Better Know the Bureau series in which we will be interviewing people within the Competition Bureau to let us get to know them, their background, and their role within the Bureau.
00:57
Julia Potter
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Kristen McLean, Senior Competition Law Officer in the Monopolistic Practices Branch at the Competition Bureau. Good morning, Kristen. So first off, I just want to welcome you to the Counterfactual Podcast, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time getting to know you and hearing about your experiences at the Bureau.
01:18
Kristen McLean
Wonderful, thank you for having me.
01:20
Julia Potter
So I guess let's jump right in. Can you please share with us your story of how you began working at the Bureau and your career journey that led you there?
01:29
Kristen McLean
Yeah, so I feel like I took more of a non kind of traditional path to the Bureau. I think typically Bureau officers usually come from kind of a legal brought background or kind of are more focused on economics. And I actually did my undergrad and my master's in business. So, you know, I took a few economic courses throughout my time in school, but my focus was more on kind of business administration. So things like marketing, accounting, finance, strategy, that sort of thing. And then when I finished my MBA, I worked in the private sector for a few years. So my first kind of job at a school was I worked at Bombardier at Downsview in Toronto. And there I worked on kind of organizational development. So
02:22
Kristen McLean
kind of helping them rethink their organizational structure to kind of improve efficiency and productivity. So kind of very different, not in the competition law world at all, certainly.And then after that, I worked for Nielsen Market Research. And there I helped kind of consumer packaged-goods companies. So kind of like a Procter & Gamble or a Unilever… Kind of help improve their, you know, product price placement, pricing, promotion, that sort of thing to help them kind of increase sales. And so, yeah, I think after a few years of working in the private sector, you know, I think I wasn't really feeling kind of very fulfilled. It was a bit soul crushing sometimes. I felt like I wanted to do work that I felt was more meaningful,
03:15
Kristen McLean
something, you know, I felt like had a positive contribution to society, that sort of thing. So I kind of made the decision. I was previously living in Toronto and I decided to move to Ottawa and try out the public service. So my first job in the public service, I actually worked for Statistics Canada. I worked in their Agricultural Statistics Branch
03:40
Kristen McLean
and I did that for about a year before I took a position at the Competition Bureau. And there I started in the Policy Planning and Advocacy Unit. So yeah, like I think like most Canadians, I really knew very little about the Bureau before I started working there. But I really fell in love with it, and the work that we do here, I feel like, you know, it's a great place to kind of use my background and experience in business, but kind of work on
04:10
Kristen McLean
you know, kind of work that I really feel is truly meaningful and has the potential to, you know, have a positive impact on the lives of Canadians. So that's a bit of how I got here today.
04:21
Julia Potter
Yeah, that's interesting. That is a bit of an alternative path, I think, from most. So was that the main motivation then to come to public service?
04:30
Kristen McLean
Yeah, yeah, I think you know, like I said, I really wanted to do work I felt like was meaningful. I wasn't totally sure what that looked like at the time, but you know, work that I felt kind of had like a potential to have a positive impact on people's lives. And I think it's one of those things where, you know, you're out and you're kind of, you know, at a party or you're catching up with people that you knew from school. And I found kind of when I was describing what I did when I worked in the private sector,
04:59
Kristen McLean
I wasn't particularly proud or kind of passionate about what I was doing. And I think I actually, there was a friend I bumped into from high school and I think she worked in municipal politics, but you know you could just tell by the way she talked about her work that she just loved it and she was so into it. And I really wanted that. So that was kind of, I think the motivation that brought me to the public sector. And then honestly, like just it was just by chance I ended up at the Bureau and really like… Kind of working at the Bureau for a few years, just really fell in love with the work and I felt like it was a good fit.
05:34
Kristen McLean
So yeah, it's worked out well.
05:37
Julia Potter
You found the passion.
05:38
Kristen McLean
Yes, exactly.
05:39
Julia Potter
That's great. So you mentioned Policy Planning and Advocacy and obviously you're in Monopolistic Practices now. Have you held any other positions at the Bureau or have you moved around a bunch?
05:49
Kristen McLean
Yeah, actually I've moved around actually quite a bit. So yeah, I started in Policy Planning and Advocacy and like really kind of not being someone that had a great familiarity with kind of competition law and that sort of thing, I think it was a kind of a really great introduction to competition law.
06:09
Kristen McLean
And the focus, I worked in the Advocacy Directorate and our focus was really on kind of regulatory barriers to competition. So making recommendations to regulators and policymakers about how to reduce kind of barriers to competition. And, and I loved, I loved that role. It was great. You know, you get to kind of speak to various kinds of business owners and people in different markets and different industries
06:36
Kristen McLean
who are, you know, oftentimes faced with challenges. And, you know, it's very rewarding work because you get a chance to kind of spend the time to listen to someone's frustrations and impacts, you know, whatever the barrier is that's having on their business and oftentimes their livelihood.
06:57
Kristen McLean
And I mean, not in all cases, but it's very gratifying to, you know, take the time to listen to them, but also to be in a position to try to help them through some form of advocacy. And so I really enjoyed it and it was really… I learned so much working in Advocacy.
07:13
Kristen McLean
I also worked on quite a few kinds of various what we call like interventions to regulators. So, I worked a lot on kind of a few interventions to the CRTC, the table telecommunications regulator, including one on the wholesale wireless proceeding, which was a kind of a big review of their wireless framework a few years ago. And that was great because you know the CRTC is really a regulator that's very engaged on competition issues and they're very
07:45
Kristen McLean
open and kind of willing to hear from us on various competition issues. So that was great. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the telecommunications industry, as well as kind of how we interface with different regulators. And then from there, I moved to mergers, the Mergers Directorate for a couple of years. I was working on the Roger Shaw merger, kind of given my previous experience working on kind of various telecom files and kind of the knowledge I gained about the industry there.
08:16
Kristen McLean
And then after that, kind of for the past year and a bit, I've been working in Monopolistic Practices. So yeah, a few different areas and all very different and kind of learn different things and very different, uh, kind of work in each of those, but super interesting.
08:33
Julia Potter
Yeah, that's very interesting sort of how you've moved through and the evolution of the roles there. I guess we can talk more about the Monopolistic Practices side, but what is a typical day like for you and how would you describe the main responsibilities you have and just generally what you do every day?
08:50
Kristen McLean
Yeah, so I think the role I'm in now is, I find really more of kind of a project management function, I would say. It's really kind of, you know, mapping out kind of what needs to be done on a file, you know, drawing up work plans, assigning work to the team,kind of engaging with other areas of the Bureau, for example, like the Economic Analysis Branch or our Competition Bureau Legal Services.
09:17
Kristen McLean
Day to day I think it really depends on the file you're working on and kind of how far along in the case you are so I mean generally kind of early in a file, you know, you're having a lot of calls with market participants and doing kind of a lot of desk research to try to understand kind of the industry you're looking at.
09:36
Kristen McLean
And then I guess right now, my typical day, I'm doing a lot of doc review. And so, you know, I do, I would say at least an hour of that a day. Sometimes, you know, you end up going down a rabbit hole and an hour turns into two or three. But yeah, depending on the file you're working on, there's quite a bit of doc review. And then, you know, I usually have, I would say one or two kind of market calls or calls with experts a week.
10:05
Kristen McLean
And then also, I mean drafting to drafting analysis or assessments or recommendations, again, depending on where you are in a case, that sort of thing. So yeah, I think it varies, but I think generally that's kind of how I spend my days.
10:18
Julia Potter
How does a file get to you? Or how do you prepare your team? like Do you get to pick your team that you're working with? How does that allocation get done?
10:26
Kristen McLean
Yeah, so I think it, again, it depends kind of what branch you're working in. So for example, like Advocacy, you know, you'll have, we do kind of monitoring and kind of seeing what, you know, different kind of open consultations there are. So we'll look for kind of regulatory bodies or agencies that are holding I would say consultations that have kind of a competition angle.
10:54
Kristen McLean
And if we think, you know, we can add value or there's a competition lens there we think that there would be value in sharing, we'll kind of participate in those. It's more of a, you know, a kind of a proactive approach to kind of finding work and deciding on what we want to work on. We also have market studies, obviously, where we would kind of figure out an industry and launch a market study. Mergers is obviously very different where, you know, you don't really have kind of control over what files come in and what files kind of progress to more kind of full-blown cases. And then Monopolistic Practices is different in that, you know, it's very kind of complaints-driven. So, you know, you have complaints come in, we have kind of a triage, a unit that kind of takes in the complaints and kind of does like a triage of
11:44
Kristen McLean
you know kind of weeding out ones where you know there's clearly no… it's not in the scope of the work that we do that sort of thing. And then those will filter through and then yeah I mean some of those move along further depending on how, you know, initial outreach to market participants and research goes that sort of thing. And they kind of evolve from there. Yeah I think there is some ability to pick the team you're working on. I think it also depends kind of on the subject matter. So we have, you know, there's people who end up kind of becoming specialists in certain areas, you know, so someone's worked on a lot of, you know, airline files, or someone works a lot on telecommunication files. So they kind of... you have people kind of develop areas of expertise. And so if a file comes in in a certain area, you know, just for kind of
12:38
Kristen McLean
efficiency reasons it makes sense to have people who already are kind of up to speed on that industry work on those files. So you get a bit of I guess clustering you could say but yeah, there's a bit of choice and you know, some people like to try different areas
12:50
Kristen McLean
they're not as familiar with so It's nice… It's nice you get some variety
12:55
Julia Potter
Yeah, that's great. Sounds like that was helpful for you with the telecom experience. It sort of led you from one place to another as well.
13:00
Kristen McLean
Yeah, exactly.
13:03
Julia Potter
And I think you've touched on this a little bit, but it'd be great to hear a little bit more about sort of in what ways or how often you would be collaborating with other departments at the Bureau. and I know you've mentioned sort of folks outside the Bureau too, so maybe we can talk about that a little bit as well.
13:17
Kristen McLean
Yeah, I think it really depends on where you are. So I guess, for example, like in Advocacy, we had quite a bit of interaction, for example, with Monopolistic Practices. So an example would be kind of a complaint comes into Monopolistic Practices, and they kind of do a triage on their end and say, you know, we don't really see an enforcement angle here,
13:41
Kristen McLean
but there does seem to be a competition issue that's maybe, for example, related to like a regulatory barrier or some, you know, policy level kind of barrier to competition where there may be kind of an advocacy angle. So they would kind of pass that to the Advocacy Unit to look into whether or not there may be kind of an opportunity to pursue it via kind of advocacy to a regulator or policymaker. So in that context, we mostly worked with Monopolistic Practices, I think generally. But then for other areas, I think you interact with other branches. Like, you know for example, you know you get h a complaint about a certain industry and you start researching and studying it. If that industry… I think the first thing you kind of do is look for if the Bureau has done any kind of reviews, investigations kind of in that industry recently. So for example,
14:38
Kristen McLean
if we got a complaint in Monopolistic Practices in an industry there was recently like a merger review, you would likely reach out to the team to try and just benefit from the knowledge they gained through that review. So again, just in terms of efficiency and getting people up to speed on an industry because you know, like we're not experts in every industry so we really have to kind of like leverage expertise that has been gained through previous reviews. And I think like when I first started at the Bureau, and maybe I just didn't have as much visibility into it, but I think we've gotten better at kind of having people work cross-functionally. So, you know, if you work in mergers, you don't have to just work in mergers. If there's, you know, I think now when we have major projects or even market studies or kind of investigations, you'll have people kind of move to different branches to help out on a specific file, if they have kind of industry knowledge or want to get experience
15:30
Kristen McLean
just so we have people kind of getting that experience throughout the Bureau. So, and like you said, I was kind of a perfect example of that with kind of working on telecoms in Advocacy, and then having that kind of t transition me into working on a merger file where I could still add value because I had, you know, knowledge on the industry. So.
15:49
Julia Potter
Yeah, that's quite interesting. Less of a siloed approach and more of that information can flow and help each other out kind of approach.
15:55
Kristen McLean
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the goal. Like ,you know, I think like with every organization, you kind of constantly struggle with silos. and like you know, you're always striving to kind of break those down and have information sharing. It's sometimes, you know, easier said than done. People get really wrapped up in their work. But I think we're definitely doing a better job at kind of breaking those down, and it makes us better at our jobs. right so, yeah.
16:18
Julia Potter
Yeah, that makes sense. And I guess on the external piece, obviously in the Advocacy side, it sounds like there was a lot of interaction with other agencies or sort folks looking who are holding consultations. In the Monopolistic Practices Branch, is there any kind of like similar outreach or that's occurring regularly anyways?
16:37
Kristen McLean
Not really in Monopolistic Practice, I mean, again, in my experience. But I think, you know, unless there is, kind of a… it's a regulated industry, for example, where it's important to understand kind of the context of the regulations and how they impact competition. In that case, you know, , you'll seek to kind of understand the regulations, the policies in place, and how they may kind of set the tone or kind of understand the context of how competition operates in that industry. But I would say less so. The enforcement's a bit different in that sense. There isn't as much, but certainly it does happen if there is a, especially for regulated industries where it's important to understand that. Yeah.
17:24
Julia Potter
Yeah, that makes sense. So shifting gears a little bit, what aspects of your job do you find most rewarding or what challenges do you encounter?
17:36
Kristen McLean
Yeah, like I find the work really meaningful. Like I said, I think it's just really a chance to have kind of a positive impact on Canadians. And I love that I'm doing work that I think is in the public interest. And so, you know, it's easy to kind of get excited and invested in your work when you believe in what you're doing, and I think that's kind of what I might find most fulfilling. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a double-edged sword because you know, when you're really invested in what you're doing and you think it's very important and you think it's beneficial, it makes it that much harder when you're unsuccessful. So that's definitely a challenging part of the job. It's part of the job and obviously it happens, but it is, you know…when you care about what you're doing, it's harder when you're not successful. And I guess, I mean, other challenging aspects would be,
18:34
Kristen McLean
you know, we have to have challenging conversations with, you know, for example, a complainant when you're unable to help them with something that, you know, often is having, you know, a serious kind of impact on like their business and often their livelihoods. And, you know, it's always tough. Sometimes, you know, the reasons why you can't help them, I'm sure to them seem kind of silly or bureaucratic, right. So it's… those are hard conversations to have. So that's, I would say, the other challenging part of the job
19:05
Kristen McLean
I certainly don't enjoy.
19:07
Julia Potter
Yeah, that sounds fair. It's a lot of interfacing with folks who have a lot of you know interest and a lot on the line, and having to deliver. It’s never a fun part of any job.
19:19
Julia Potter
Well, I guess, I like asking this question, but how can private practice counsel assist you to make your job a bit easier? Or on the other hand, what do we do that makes your work more difficult?
19:33
Kristen McLean
[laughs] Yeah, perfect in every way. Yeah yeah, you guys are great.
19:37
Kristen McLean
No, no, no, no issues. I honestly, though, I’ve had like nothing but great experiences. I don't know if I'm just lucky or if that's common, but I really have had nothing but great experiences.
19:51
Kristen McLean
I think, you know, like on both sides, like for both the Bureau and kind of private competition counsel, it's really just about I think remembering that you know, everyone's here to do their job and, you know, I mean, I really try to just understand where people are coming from and take their issues and concerns seriously and try to be reasonable, you know, and I hope that counsel on the other side does the same. You know, like sometimes it can't be helped and it's just the nature of kind of adversarial nature we're in, but I just, I don't find it helpful, you know, when things kind of become uncivil or counterproductive. It
20:30
Kristen McLean
doesn't help anybody. It just becomes kind of a bit of a sideshow. So yeah, I don't have anything specific, honestly. I've had great experiences, but I will let you know if I think of anything.
20:42
Julia Potter
Well, that's good to hear. And I guess for someone who's looking at your role and thinking about it with interest, what would you say are the skills or attributes that would be crucial for someone to either excel in your specific role or within your department or I guess in any of the roles you've had in the past too?
20:59
Kristen McLean
Yeah, like, I think for like any officer at the Bureau, regardless in whatever branch you're working in, it is, I think it's really crucial to have kind of like a genuine curiosity and kind of like, you know, a relentless drive to find the truth. It's, you know, we hear… we get kind of commentary and perspectives from all sides, right. And often they're very polarized and very different. And so trying to weed out…just trying to get to what the facts are and what the truth is. Kind of understanding people have their own interests. And, you know, so I think that that to me is the most important part of my job. And I always tell people, that's why I love doc review, because you know it's just like this unvarnished, you know, information. You know, it's just so helpful in understanding kind of
21:59
Kristen McLean
anyways, how industries work or how business operates and that sort of thing. So I think that's super important. I think it's important, you know, for officers to be objective and kind of open to changing their minds, right? But I think it's also important to kind of have the courage to defend what you believe in or what you believe is the right path. Again, because, you know, you will kind of get a lot of resistance either from, you know,
22:27
Kristen McLean
a target or even internally kind of challenging whether or not something is the right path. And so I think it's important to be able to kind of defend your position and you know, hold to it. I think that's an important part of the job. And then, yeah, I mean, operationally, I think, like, project management skills are super important. I'm, you know, big on project management. And then things you know like empathy and having a strong moral compass, like those are all things I think you know are pretty critical to being kind of good at your job and making sure you know you're always kind of doing the right thing for the right reasons. I think that's really important.
23:10
Last question, and again, more on the personal side, is there something about you that might surprise people to find out?
23:17
Kristen McLean
I feel very uninteresting when I think about this, and you just struggle to find anything that you would think is surprising to somebody else. So I apologize for being boring. But yeah, maybe something that's… so my grandmother on my mom's side is Armenian.
23:36
Kristen McLean
And so I'm a quarter Armenian.
23:39
Kristen McLean
And so I also… when I was living in Toronto, when I was young, up until grade six, I went to an Armenian private school. So I used to be fluent in Armenian, but I've lost it a bit.
23:51
Kristen McLean
So it's there, but I technically do still say I speak Armenian. That's something I think would surprise people. I don't know how interesting it is, but I think it surprises people.
24:03
Kristen McLean
Yeah I've also, I mean,like I’ve done a bit of traveling. I feel like everyone travels now, so it's not even like cool or interesting anymore, but me and my older sister had like a competition going for a while to see who could get to 100 countries first.
24:18
Kristen McLean
And so I did pretty well, but she beat me by a landslide. So, I've traveled quite a bit. I took, you know, a few kind of breaks, like after school, like I took six months off and kind of traveled through like Asia and then I took another six months off and did like South America, Central America.
24:34
Kristen McLean
So I love travel and I've been to quite a few countries that, yeah, I think it's interesting too, but yeah, maybe not surprising.
24:42
Julia Potter
Yeah, so well you definitely got me beat on the travel then. A hundred countries is a lot of countries.
24:45
Kristen McLean
I haven't made it. So she has, she just got to a hundred. I haven't made it there yet. I think I got to like, sixty and then she actually, she took a year sabbatical from her job and she did like a… she basically traveled the entire like around Africa.
25:04
Kristen McLean
She camped around like the periphery of Africa for a year and she just… at that point I was like I have no chance
25:14
Julia Potter
That sounds like an amazing trip.
25:16
Kristen McLean
You got like points for the number of countries, like cool countries. Like just, yeah. She blew me out of the water, but it's fine. I still got… I still appreciate the experiences I got, but I lost. Yeah.
25:25
Julia Potter
You've got time to catch up too.
25:28
Julia Potter
Okay great well that's helpful, yeah. Well I guess even on the Armenian side I guess you don't get to use that much at the Bureau but you know maybe a document will come in one day.
25:35
Kristen McLean
No, yes, exactly. I'm just waiting for that one market participant who'd prefer to speak Armenian and I'll be there.
25:42
Julia Potter
Well, thank you so much, Kristen, for being here today and letting us get to know a bit more about you and your role. It's been really nice chatting with you today and we appreciate you coming on here.
25:52
Kristen McLean
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.