Watchdog recommends foreign ownership of domestic airlines amid low competition
The Canadian Press
Canada should allow up to 100 per cent foreign ownership of domestic-only airlines in a bid to lower fares and boost flight options, the Competition Bureau says in a new report highlighting the country’s “highly concentrated” aviation industry.
Statement | Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project welcomes final report of Competition Bureau airline market study
June 19, 2025 [OTTAWA, ON] – The Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP) welcomes today’s release of the Competition Bureau’s long-awaited final report on Canada’s airline market, confirming what Canadians already know: the airline industry and existing consumer protections are failing travellers.
“CAMP endorses the Bureau’s clear acknowledgement that Canada’s airline market is not delivering for Canadians,” said CAMP executive director Keldon Bester. “Successive federal governments have given the green light to harmful mergers and allowed passenger complaints to skyrocket without resolution. Canadians deserve better. The cozy duopoly that divides the country rather than competes for it needs immediate and meaningful government action.”
The report marks an important milestone as the first market study to occur under the Bureau’s new powers to compel information from companies instead of relying on insufficient voluntary disclosures by the very companies being studied.
CAMP is encouraged that the Bureau adopted several recommendations from its own submission to the study, including:
- Reducing the reliance on user fees biased against smaller players to fund the air travel system.
- Increasing the allowed level of foreign ownership of airlines from 25% to 49%.
- Publishing a wider range of public data on the air travel system.
Unfortunately, missing from the Bureau’s recommendations was a plan to improve competition for the rural and remote communities that need it most and a plan to ensure Canadian travelers have recourse when things go wrong.
To address those fundamental gaps, CAMP recommends the Government of Canada:
- Explore a regulatory model that provides routine, utility-like service to rural and remote communities that depend on air travel.
- Increase funding for the Canadian Transportation Agency to clear the existing complaint backlog and ensure timely resolutions going forward by streamlining the complaint process under the Air Passenger Protection Regulation (APPR).
- Avoid relaxation of restrictions on domestic operations of foreign carriers absent reciprocal relaxation or investment on the part of foreign air carriers, following the models of Australia and Chile.
Through meaningful reform and targeted investment that supports competition, the Government of Canada can transform Canada’s underperforming airline market into a critical component of its nation-building efforts connecting us from coast to coast to coast.
The other sovereignty threat
In the first week of Canada’s 2025 federal election campaign, both the Liberal and Conservative parties unveiled personal income tax cuts sold as providing relief to Canadians staring down the threat of both tariffs and economic annexation emanating from the White House.
Read the article here.
How Canada Can Up Its Game Against Monopolies
The Tyee
Antitrust advocate Keldon Bester on new watchdog laws, recharging competition, dismantling Big Tech and more.
Letters: Gatekeeper Crisis
June 15, 2025Welcome 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:
Now let’s dive in.
CAMP Discussion Paper: Confronting Canada’s Gatekeeper CrisisAmid a worsening relationship with the United States, several assumptions about the Canadian economy taken for granted for decades are now in need of reassessment. The situation is particularly urgent in key digital markets where a handful of American firms dominate. Exploring this topic, this week CAMP released a new discussion paper: Confronting Canada’s Gatekeeper Crisis, advancing our study of the risk that American tech dominance poses for Canada’s economic and national security. Scanning three markets critical to the present and future of the modern economy - online advertising, cloud computing infrastructure, and artificial intelligence (AI) – we see a recurring pattern of monopolization by American giants. But yesterday’s monopoly problem is now compounded with the increasingly likely risk that this monopolization becomes a point of leverage in Canada’s interactions with the U.S. government. Online advertising is effectively a duopoly market split between Google and Meta, with systems that create huge aftermarkets for personal data, with implications for personal privacy and national security. Cloud computing infrastructure is the base of our digitized, service economy, and if you operate a business or even a government department you’re likely relying on either Amazon, Microsoft, or Google. Our economy depends on their continued availability and if the use of this infrastructure is leveraged against Canada, we’ll have few places to turn. While still an emerging field, AI products from companies like OpenAI already shows the potential to shape Canadians access to information in ways that benefit its owners rather than its users. How we access information, connect with one another, and do business in Canada is increasingly mediated by a handful of gatekeepers headquartered outside our borders. For decades, we assumed we had a stable ally and that this integration would benefit our economy and society. Now Canadians must consider a world where these assumptions no longer hold. 📰CAMP in the News📰
Competition Bureau Sues DoorDash for Deceptive Drip PricingHave you ever been annoyed to find out that the $10 breakfast sandwich you ordered to your door somehow ended up costing you $30? This week, Canada’s Competition Bureau filed a lawsuit against food delivery company Doordash, alleging that the company’s slow rolling and potential misrepresenting of fees amounts to a deceptive marketing practise. “Drip-pricing” is the practice of adding fees throughout the purchase process so that customers end up paying more than the price they were advertised. DoorDash has a laundry list of these: delivery fees, surge pricing, extended range fees, small order fees, and “regulatory response fees.” The Bureau argues DoorDash should present customers with the true cost of items when they decide to buy them. What fees they charge is the company’s business, but those costs should be transparent and given up front. DoorDash has already run into problems misleading customers about the fees they charge and where that money goes. In February, the New York attorney general’s office settled a $17 Million lawsuit against DoorDash for pocketing the tips given to drivers and using them to offset their base pay. Both cases highlight the potential for manipulation when pricing decisions are offloaded to algorithms that are opaque to both customers and employees, something the Bureau is currently consulting the public on. The Bureau case is an important defense of transparent pricing and fair competition. When companies are allowed to compete on prices they can’t offer, companies that are up front with customers are put at a competitive disadvantage. While the Bureau’s case may not make your next breakfast sandwich cheaper, it will lessen the shock when you happen to check the receipt. 📚What We’re Reading📚
Big Banks to Blame for Banal Business ClimateWhen you think of innovation and dynamism, the last thing that comes to mind is one of Canada’s big banks, and that may be dragging down our economy. In a new piece this week for the Globe and Mail, Professor J. Ari Pandes and Senator Colin Deacon explore the role of Canada’s Big Six banks in Canada’s stagnant commercial landscape. Holding most of Canada’s money, these banks control over 90% of Canada’s banking, and are an important source of capital for new and growing companies, whether through corporate loans or underwriting companies going public. The authors argue that the conservatism of these giants has led them to neglect emerging technology companies, creating hurdles for firms to seek capital or go public with an IPO. When you’re already on top, why bother with the risk? It is a lot easier to make profits by charging high fees for middling service and underwriting mortgages. If we want to hold our own against the United States and forge new trading relationships across the world, we’ll need strong firms creating new and innovative products and services. This means having entrepreneurial institutions that are willing to take on the risk of helping these firms grow. Whether for lower fees, better service, or more active capital markets, CAMP has been pushing for a more competitive banking sector since our founding. With Prime Minister Carney’s central bank background and experience with FinTech firms like Stripe, Canada is well positioned to break out of this pattern of stagnation. 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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Discussion Paper | Confronting Canada's Gatekeeper Crisis
June 12, 2025 - Canada’s relationship with the United States has been upended. The opening months of the second Trump administration have brought tariffs, threats to unravel national security partnerships, and a fixation on the potential of Canada as the 51st state. At the same time, the largest American technology firms are forging closer ties to the new administration and tightening their grip on global digital markets.
These twin shifts mean the companies that mediate how Canadians communicate, understand the world around us, and engage in commerce can no longer be treated as benign commercial partners. Across tariff negotiation, censorship worries, and our future as an independent nation, Canada’s dependence on the infrastructure of U.S. tech companies is now a point of strategic vulnerability.
In a new discussion paper, CAMP provides an overview of the consolidated landscape in three key areas of digital infrastructure - online advertising, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence - and poses four questions to begin charting a new course towards durable digital sovereignty:
- How can Canada guarantee reliable, sovereign access to critical digital infrastructure, when that infrastructure is currently the domain of a tight oligopoly of American firms?
- What new or strengthened policy tools are needed to rein in the power of digital gatekeepers, and how can Canada ensure those policies have teeth?
- What mix of public investment, industrial policy, and procurement strategy is needed to foster domestic or allied alternatives to American platforms in important digital markets?
- How should Canada collaborate with like-minded countries to resist pressure to weaken regulation of digital gatekeepers and present a united front on shared policy goals?
Read the full discussion paper here