TORONTO — The Competition Bureau vowed to continue its fight with the Canadian Real Estate Association even after the industry group unanimously voted in Ottawa Thursday to overhaul its rules.

“There is nothing in these proposals that we haven’t seen before and they do not solve the problem,” said Melanie Aitken, the competition commissioner. “They are a step in the wrong direction. These amendments amount to a blank cheque allowing CREA and its members to create rules that could have even greater anti-competitive consequences.”

The two sides have been battling over access to the Multiple Listing Service system, which is owned in Canada by CREA and responsible for about 90% of residential property sales.

The watchdog says the association’s new measures do not go far enough, although they ultimately give consumers some ability to decide how much they use a realtor on a deal and allow consumers to conduct parts of a transaction without using a realtor.

“The amendments do not remove the existing roadblocks to real estate agents who list properties on the MLS from offering innovative services and pricing options to consumers,” the bureau said.

A key sticking point in the negotiations, which was included in what was passed in Ottawa, was a stipulation allowing local boards to install their own set of regulations on realtors.

Such a move by local boards would be even tougher for the bureau to police because the watchdog would be faced with going after boards individually right across the country. A source indicated that was one of the reasons the bureau walked away from negotiations and decided to proceed with a complaint to the Competition Tribunal in February.

Ms. Aitken said she wrote CREA’s president as recently as last week to indicate the changes did not go far enough. “We have repeatedly advised CREA’s leadership that these amendments do not solve our ongoing competition concerns,” she said.

CREA said it believed the amendments which it called “clarifications of the existing rules” should address the concerns raised by the bureau.

“CREA is pleased that the amendments have passed”, said Georges Pahud, incoming president of the group, in a statement.

The association went on to say that the “amendments ensure the continued integrity of MLS systems and the accuracy and quality of information on board MLS systems that Canadians have come to trust.”

CREA, which represents about 100 boards across the country, had proposed the changes less than a week after the federal competition watchdog filed an application with the Competition Tribunal in February. CREA has until Thursday to file its defence.

Sources have indicated the bureau filed the application after CREA was unwilling to eliminate the “three pillars,” the main rules that govern use of the MLS system.

The three pillars had said only a realtor could place a listing on MLS, only a listing realtor can act as an agent for the seller of the property and assist them during the entire time of the listing contract and a listing realtor must agree to pay the co-operating realtor compensation that must be more than zero.

The changes passed affect the second pillar, removing the requirement that a realtor act as agent for the seller “throughout the entire time” of a listing contract. In CREA’s amendments, its interpretations of the three pillars have eliminated the clause that required a realtor to handle all offers and counter offers.

CREA has also removed the qualification that made it against the rules to simply post property information without providing more service. The watchdog had singled out that rule in particular, in launching its complaint.

Financial Post

gmarr@nationalpost.com