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OTTAWA — The woman who is proud to be called the country’s consumer-protection czar remembers her first encounter years ago with the questionable actions of a debt-collection agency.

Lucie Tedesco, a law student at the time, received a phone call from the debt collector after she missed a minimum payment on a retailer’s credit card. They threatened, she recalled, to garnish her wages if she didn’t pay up.

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But thanks to her studies, Tedesco said she knew full well they needed a court order to pluck cash from her paycheque. So she called their bluff.

The experience also opened her eyes.

“That really made me angry and I saw that there were perhaps practices out there that were not benefiting consumers,” said Tedesco, who became commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada in September 2013.

Not only is the agency a key piece of the Harper government’s consumer agenda, Tedesco’s already-powerful office could become even stronger once the Conservatives introduce a long-promised comprehensive financial consumer code that would replace the existing patchwork of legislation and regulations.