April 5, 2026

Welcome to Letters from CAMP, a newsletter on anti-monopoly activity in Canada and abroad, brought to you by the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project. In this instalment we have:

• Indie chocolatiers offer some relief this Easter after years of rising prices and shrinkflation
• Canadians are ready for regulation of social media, but the details on how it happens matter
• Musk’s bogus online advertising antitrust lawsuit gets tossed by U.S. judge

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Now let’s dive in.

Little Chocolate Helps Easter Stay Sweet

This Easter, Canadian families are going to have to shell out more than ever for chocolate. The Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhouse University finds that the price of a pound of chocolate has increased 15% in the last year. This is just the latest wave of price increases consumers are seeing after the trading price of cocoa has increased by 500% since 2022. The story of the commodity price increase is very much one of external shocks: climate change, deforestation, and supply disruptions have all lent a hand. But the increase in consumer prices has not shown up uniformly in the market, and the reason is competition.

Big Chocolate has been cornering competitors and consolidating the market for over 50 years. Canada’s chocolate market is quite concentrated, with five international players dominating: Mars Wrigley, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Hershey and Lindt & Sprüngli. These firms dominate the mass market for chocolate offering products like milk chocolate, and candy bars. These candymakers have responded to rising cocoa prices by adulterating their products with oils and emulsifiers, shrinking sizes while keeping prices flat, and increasing the efficiency of cocoa extraction. All this means consumers get less while paying more.

But the story is different for independent producers. Craft chocolatiers and their direct relationships with cocoa farmers have become crucial to maintaining their supply and the high quality that allows them to survive. Rather than lowering quality, they’ve been competing on it and increasing product variety. And rather than passing higher costs onto consumers, the indies are taking a margin hit and absorbing the rise to stay competitive.

The Canadian chocolate market is a reminder that a diversity of businesses matters. Different companies with different business models are delivering for consumers when the big players are offering lower quality at a higher price. This Easter is going to be tough on the pocketbooks of Canadians, but competition from indies will give us a chance to splurge on an extra chocolate bunny or two.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• ​Canada’s role in the Strait of Hormuz – Crypto donations to political parties – Prediction markets coming to Canada (Mornings with Simi)

The Draw and Limits of Social Media Bans in Canada

Canadians are ready to regulate social media platforms. This week, polling found that nearly 75% of Canadians support banning kids under 16 from social media. This enthusiasm comes as peers in Australia, France and the UK consider or move ahead with their own bans. The appeal of bans for minors is understandable. They present a straightforward way to protect children from harm online. But reality is unfortunately more complicated. If Canada is going to pursue a ban, it must be matched with effective platform regulation if we hope to address the underlying issues with platforms and avoid creating new ones.

The first complication is how to identify a minor in the first place. To date, two approaches have emerged. Australia has made platforms responsible for determining the age of their users, necessitating collecting the data of minors and creating a financial incentive for lax enforcement. Another route is to require users to present official ID for age verification. By linking online activity to official identification, the picture that corporations and governments have about the activity of individuals online would become even more complete.

Beyond privacy and rights concerns, the major gap in social media bans is that they leave the issues with platforms untouched. Without matching bans with effective platform regulation, we’d be shutting the gate to garden while letting the weeds grow. To pull those weeds, we need stronger privacy protections, greater transparency, and accountability for systems engineered to keep eyes on screens. Just one example, legislative proposals like the Online Harm Act that create a duty of care for platforms are needed to protect children and adults alike online. Canadians recognize the issues with social media and are ready for action. It’s the responsibility of policy makers to ensure that action gets to the heart of the matter.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Newman, Lawless Antitrust (Fordham Law Review)
• Bednar and Corbett, Ottawa Hands Billions to Firms Calling Themselves Canadian. Most Aren’t (The Walrus)
• Vronces, Buyer Beware (Medium of Exchange)

Musk’s Bogus Antitrust Lawsuit Hits the Brakes

Last week, a judge threw out an antitrust lawsuit brought by Elon Musk against some of the world’s largest advertisers. Musk alleged that advertisers colluded to withdraw advertising spend from X, Musk’s rebranded Twitter, causing billions in lost revenue. Musk claimed this was blackmail and against the interests of those advertisers since X is such a valuable advertising platform. Defendants argued that rather than colluding, they each decided to end spending independently. The judge agreed, and it’s not hard to see why.

Musk is no stranger to conspiracy theories. But his real enemy here is market competition functioning as it should. Rather than a vast conspiracy, advertisers no longer wanted their products shown on a platform that has devolved into mostly rage-bait, hate speech, and literal Nazi propaganda. Most businesses don’t want their brands associated with this kind of content, and so the decision to walk away made commercial sense.

Competition is a process of experimentation. Successful experiments are rewarded by flocking customers, unsuccessful experiments… not so much. Rather than a boycott conspiracy, advertisers jumping ship is the result of an experiment in how much of a garbage fire an online platform can become. We should add that Musk is no stranger to boycotts, launching unsuccessful attempts at both Wikipedia and Netflix in the past. By throwing out the spurious lawsuit, the judge in this case has taken an important step in preserving the ability of competition to teach the lesson Musk is currently learning.

If you have any monopoly tips or stories you’d like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca

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