Loblaw Has Become an Everything Company

According to Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, “there is in our competition institutions, and reflected in parts of government, a ‘first do no harm’ kind of approach.” That attitude is complemented by so-called “regulatory humility,” he adds, which means the state plays the role of an uncertain broker, unwilling to assume the worst of companies. He says this approach misses the “one-way nature of these things,” and so it becomes less likely that we can reverse their concentration and entrenchment.