October 4, 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 installment we have:

• “Second-generation Competition Agreement” on the agenda for upcoming Canada-E.U. partnership summit
• The Competition Bureau investigates how “minimum advertised prices” influence grocery competition
• American AI leaders commit to “pacing” at the White House while facing FTC scrutiny

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Now let’s dive in.

The Next Generation of Canada-E.U. Competition Cooperation

The next step in Canada and the European Union becoming closer has a serious competition component. This week, ahead of a summit in Montreal this month, a leaked draft joint statement laid out the terms of the “Canada-EU Alliance for the Future,” giving a sweeping vision of collaboration across areas like investment, defence, and economic policy. Included was mention of a “second-generation Competition Agreement” between Canada and the bloc. But what is a second-generation Competition Agreement? Do we have a first-generation one? And what does it mean for the future of competition in Canada?

Whatever their generation, these agreements determine how easy it is for competition authorities to cooperate across borders. Since 1999, Canada has had a first-generation agreement with the E.U. allowing for notification, mutual assistance, and exchange of non-confidential information. That’s helpful, but it restricts authorities from sharing information gathered during investigations of cross-border monopolies. That’s where a second-generation agreement comes in. An agreement of this kind would allow for the exchange of confidential information and create the potential for greater coordination on matters of law enforcement.

Canada will be joining a small club: only Switzerland has a similar agreement with the bloc. While Canada has second-generation agreements with several peers including the U.S., Australia, and Japan, to our knowledge this would be the first agreement reached on a government-to-government rather than enforcer-to-enforcer basis. It won’t surprise readers that we’re thrilled with this development. If Canada wants to govern some of the largest companies on the planet, we need to start deepening our collaboration with allies. It shouldn’t stop here. Canada has much to learn from Europe, as well as countries like the U.K. and Brazil, in its approach to competition in digital markets. It’s early days, but this alliance could mean we’ll have a better shot at shaping the future of competition.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• ​Competition Bureau investigates minimum advertised pricing policies in grocery sector (BNN Bloomberg)
• ​Property controls to be limited (CBC Edmonton)

What’s a Low Price If You Can’t Advertise It?

The Competition Bureau’s competition quest in the food supply chain continues. This week, the Bureau announced it would be investigating a practice known as “minimum advertised pricing” that affects how promotional and sale prices in grocery stores can be advertised. The practice does what it says on the tin: suppliers, either independently or at the behest of powerful retailers, set a floor for the price a good can be advertised at. Retailers are free to sell the product at whichever price they choose, but they must keep it hush hush.

At a minimum, this is an odd practice. To paraphrase 1964’s Dr. Strangelove, the whole point of a low price is lost if you don’t tell anyone about it. The Bureau is concerned that these policies, whether at the behest of suppliers or retailers, are limiting the ability of discount grocers to compete on price. Anyone who has tried to find a discounted iPhone understands that the practice is widespread, especially when it comes to higher end products. But amid an ongoing cost of living crunch, we can’t imagine many Canadians would be pleased to hear that there are lower prices being kept out of their apps and fliers.

The case has echoes of an important case currently underway in the States. In California, Amazon is under investigation for pressuring its suppliers, including brands like Levi’s, to raise their minimum prices on other retailers to ensure Amazon maintains the lowest price. Framed as ensuring every retailer has access to the same low price, these most-favoured-nation agreements are increasingly seen as pushing prices upward across marketplaces. Minimum advertised pricing is a good start, but the Bureau needs to be considering other ways that powerful players can use their clout to push prices higher.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Wu, Affordability Is a Winning Message for Democrats. But There’s an Even Better One. (the New York Times)
• Kalyanpur, The Real Foreign Influence Op (The Price of Power)
• Arnold, Built to Reach: How institutional accountability shapes the reach of financial systems, (Social Capital Partners)

AI Companies Favour Regulation by AI Companies

After a state dinner with almost every billionaire artificial intelligence CEO in America, the President of the Unites States has found the best people to regulate frontier AI companies: themselves. The idea was floated last month amid panic that these companies were engaged in a reckless race to develop products they had no control over. Critics noted that such an arrangement would not only leave the fox in charge of the henhouse but also had the potential to entrench the positions of the frontier labs in a quasi-regulatory cartel. Unsurprisingly, the President is unbothered by the prospect.

But the Trump Administration is walking a convoluted line when it comes to the frontier labs. While Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson attended the announcement of the “morally binding” self-regulation pact, his agency confirmed a “sweeping probe” into the dangers of AI products. The investigation will see tech leaders compelled to testify about whether a series of hacking incidents is evidence of misaligned models’ uncontrollable potency or security failures stemming from cavalier corporate culture. While this is exactly the kind of investigation that is needed, its proximity to the CEO photo op is dimming our hopes for real results.

Amid a self-regulatory and congratulatory mood in the U.S., other countries need to step up to ensure that these technologies are governed by those with the public, not vested, interest in mind. We need to interrupt the narrative that the people who created the problem are the only ones who can solve it. That goes for the labs as well as the “third party auditors” who often depend on the same companies for access to models and funding for their investigations. Apocalyptic or not, people need to have a say over the technologies that are imposed upon them.

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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