The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) will now supply transaction data in a digital format to its roughly 14,500 members throughout the province. The move comes after a Competition Bureau of Canada investigation decreed the organization was stifling competition and innovation in Quebec’s real estate brokerage services market.

Previously, member brokers did have access to QPAREB’s registry, which holds the same transaction-related data that the MLS provides in other parts of Canada, but its trove of information was not accessible through a web portal or in a form compatible with automated tools. This made QPAREB something of a national holdout.

Most other Canadian real estate associations opened up access to transaction data following the Competition Bureau’s successful actions against the Toronto Real Estate Board more than a decade ago. With QPAREB’s new agreement to provide digital data, Quebec brokers will be able to automatically extract information, integrate it into their own systems and develop their own listing tools and systems to provide information to consumers.

“Real estate data is crucial to some of the most important decisions Quebecers make when purchasing a property,” says Jeanne Pratt, Canada’s interim commissioner of competition. “This agreement will promote innovation, enhance competition and help consumers make informed choices by providing more complete access to this data.”