Letters: Fowl Play
May 25, 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 installment we have:
Now let’s dive in.
Sofina Foods Tries to Build a Turkey TitanSofina Foods Inc. recently announced its proposed acquisition of Quebec-based Exceldor Cooperative, a move that would further consolidate and reduce choice in Canada’s poultry sector. Exceldor, a cooperative consisting of roughly 330 turkey and chicken producers employing approximately 3,700, has long provided farmers bargaining power against industry giants. Canada’s poultry market is already dominated by a small number of companies (including Maple Leaf Foods, Sofina, Olymel’s, among others). Though public information is limited, sources indicate that the transaction could put half of Canada’s turkey market in the hands of a single producer. Amid an ongoing cost of living crisis, the last thing Canadians need is more concentration in the food system. Regulatory scrutiny from the Competition Bureau will be pivotal, especially given CAMP’s findings that the Bureau typically reaches negotiated settlements rather than blocking mergers in Canada’s food system. Though Canada’s laws have changed, the previous narratives around efficiency and economies of scale still loom large in the sector. Given its focus on the retail grocery space, the Bureau must conduct a full review of the transaction and go public with its findings. While CAMP stays vigilant, we depend on information provided to us by readers and supporters to stay up to date on transactions like these that can easily slip under the radar. As always if you hear any monopoly rumblings don’t hesitate to drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰
Big Corps Drop CSR Charade on Environmental ClaimsLast summer, as part of its reform of competition law, Ottawa strengthened Canada’s approach to greenwashing, that is, false claims about environmental impact or commitments. Now businesses making public environmental or sustainability claims must have evidence – verifiable data or proper testing – to back them up. In practice, these changes simply update truth-in-advertising rules for the climate age: if you boast “100% green” or “carbon neutral,” you need a paper trail to prove it. Hardly radical demands, but as UOttawa law professor Jennifer Quaid and greenwashing expert Julien O. Beaulieu lay out in a recent piece, the corporate community is losing it. Lobbyists like the Pathways Alliance scrubbed websites of climate goals, citing “significant uncertainty” and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has demanded repeal of the truth-in-advertising amendments. Canada’s Big Banks have joined the chorus: Royal Bank of Canada quietly abandoned its $500 billion sustainable financing pledge and stopped disclosing some emissions data, attributing the change to the new rules. In short, companies that were happy to ride the green wave when all you had to do was take their word for it are now throwing in the towel when asked to show their work. In reality, these anti-greenwashing measures are minimal. They neither ban environmental initiatives nor advertising – they just prohibit unsupported claims. As usual, Canada took the middle path, with jurisdictions like the E.U. taking a much harder line on these claims. Before these reforms, greenwashing was rampant: false climate pledges duped consumers and sidelined legitimate clean-tech competitors. If corporations mean what they say when it comes to environmental commitments, requiring “adequate and proper substantiation” should be the bare minimum. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
FTC Abandons Antitrust Case Against PepsiCoIn a disappointing decision, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has dropped its lawsuit accusing PepsiCo of unfair pricing practices benefiting Walmart to the detriment of smaller retailers. Filed under the leadership of former FTC Chair Lina Khan, the case targeted PepsiCo’s alleged use of secret discounts and promotional deals to give Walmart a substantial advantage over competitors, harming competition and raising prices. To excuse their retreat, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Mark Meador have taken to calling the case politically motivated, resulting in immediate criticism from antitrust advocates. Khan herself condemned the decision, arguing it effectively allows powerful retailers and suppliers unchecked freedom to use their market dominance to manipulate pricing and undermine smaller competitors. Antitrust expert Sandeep Vaheesan at the Open Markets Institute noted that if there were deficiencies in the case they could have been addressed in an amended complaint rather allowing retail giants PepsiCo and Walmart to escape scrutiny. The decision is a sign that the Trump FTC’s enthusiasm for economic populism only goes so far. The FTC had alleged PepsiCo’s conduct had raised consumer grocery bills and squeezed local grocers, but now we’re left to speculate about unseen deals that might still be tilting the playing field towards monopoly. Abandoning the case is another unfortunate sign that while the Trump FTC likes to talk tough on corporate power they aren’t willing to take the field. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca
Follow CAMP on Twitter LinkedIn Instagram or Facebook |
Critics say continuation funds risk Ponzi dynamics
Investment Officer
Continuation funds, once a post-crisis workaround for expiring vehicles in weak exit markets, are booming and find themselves at the centre of growing criticism. Critics warn they distort valuations, mask losses, and edge dangerously close to Ponzi-like dynamics.
Critics, such as Rachel Wasserman, CAMP fellow and a Canadian corporate lawyer at Wasserman Business Law, warn that continuation vehicles are “getting uncomfortably close” to Ponzi territory. “The returns are built on recycled capital, not real performance,” she told Investment Officer.
Letters: Delay Delay Delay
May 18, 2024Welcome 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:
Now let’s dive in.
Justice Delayed is Monopoly SustainedCanadian businesses, advertisers, and publishers received disappointing news last week as the Competition Tribunal announced that the Google ad-tech monopoly case would not get a hearing until early 2027. This timeline, with hearings beginning more than six years after the beginning of the investigation, delays access to justice and relief for affected Canadian businesses. As previously covered in this newsletter, Google’s dominance in online advertising extracts significant monopoly rents, inflating costs for advertisers and reducing revenue for publishers. While the U.S. DOJ has secured wins in both their Google search and ad tech cases, it is unlikely Canadians will see relief unless we bring our own corresponding cases. In the meantime, Google’s gatekeeper position will continue to pull in an outsized portion of the $16 billion Canadian online advertising market. The one exception would be in the case of the DOJ securing a global break up of Google’s businesses, separating out the parts of the business that support the search giant’s monopoly stranglehold. But it’s not just antitrust enforcers who are calling for a break up of Google. Financial analysts are increasingly seeing a breakup as beneficial, suggesting that shareholders might see greater returns if they were able to invest in the individual pieces of the search giant’s corporate empire. The analysis is a reminder that break ups are not simply a punishment for bad behaviour, but an important tool to unlock productive competitive forces in a monopolized market. The delays in the Canadian Google trial are a reminder of the need for rapid access to justice and the limitations of an approach that relies solely on courts to restore competition in markets. While the Competition Bureau must continue its important work, policy makers must consider the other avenues available to restore fair competition in markets across the economy. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰
Cloud Computing's Looming Monopoly RiskThis week the Open Markets Institute released a sobering new report highlighting critical concerns about monopoly control in cloud computing—the infrastructure that increasingly supports the modern economy. With just three American firms (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google) controlling two-thirds of global cloud infrastructure, these companies possess immense and growing power over the economic and national security concerns of countries around the world. The report urges a fundamental rethinking of regulatory approaches, emphasizing active measures to reverse current consolidation. It calls for breaking down barriers to competition through interoperability mandates, greater transparency requirements, and a clear policy recognizing cloud services as essential public utilities rather than purely private commercial products. This is not an esoteric technical issue; cloud computing power translates directly into political and economic leverage in an increasingly unstable global environment. In the coming years we can expect to see access to cloud services and the security of the data that flows through these services become flashpoints in negotiations between the U.S. and countries around the world. To mitigate our exposure to these risks, Canadian policy makers should heed the warnings of this report and work to ensure tomorrow’s digital infrastructure is open, competitive, and secure. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
What Musk’s Meddling Reveals About the Dangers of AIElon Musk’s recent debacle with xAI’s chatbot Grok illustrates an alarming risk of monopolistic control over information through artificial intelligence. This week, Ars Technica reported that Grok repeatedly generated unprompted responses about “white genocide” in South Africa which the AI itself later revealed had been instructed to regurgitate by a “rogue employee.” While the extent of ineptitude is amusing, the blunder is a cautionary tale about the dangers inherent in AI models taking on the role of sources of truth for a growing body of internet users. The image of AI systems as neutral purveyors of truth was never accurate. Instead, their output can covertly (or in this case, bizarrely overtly) reflect their owners’ biases and incentives, magnified by the algorithms that shape public discourse on a massive scale. This issue extends beyond Musk. As AI technologies become central to information consumption, their black box nature threatens our shared reality, public trust, and the health of our democracy. While Canada’s last attempt to regulate AI models failed to make it over the finish line, policy makers are not off the hook to establish clear standards and regulations for AI governance. We should be grateful for the Grok incident as a Sputnik moment for AI regulation. Left unchecked, control over AI platforms will hand even more power to shape what we understand as true to the monopolists who sit atop these black boxes. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca
Follow CAMP on Twitter LinkedIn Instagram or Facebook |
Letting Private Equity Buy Law Firms May Stifle Service, Mobility
CAMP fellow Rachel Wasserman of Wasserman Business Law says law firms should decentralize, not consolidate, to provide good service and keep lower overhead.
Private equity firms are quietly buying up and consolidating dental, accounting, medical, and veterinary practices, turning smaller independent firms into corporate chains.
Read the article here.
Letters: Communication is Key
May 11, 2024Welcome 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:
Now let’s dive in.
Carney’s Communications Policy Can Be a Tool Against MonopolyAmong its many tasks, the Carney government has a mandate to protect Canada’s independence as a sovereign nation. This week, in a piece for the Wire Report, CAMP executive director Keldon Bester describes how the communications policy of a Carney government can counteract the substantial risks posed by dominant platforms such as Meta and Google, whose control over critical digital infrastructure undermines the future of Canada’s autonomy and national security. What would this mean in practice? First it would mean addressing the unfinished business of the privacy and cybersecurity bills that died on the order paper in the last parliament. It would also mean loudly backing the Competition Bureau in its efforts to ensure even the largest companies on the planet compete fairly in Canada. Going further, it would mean legislation that recognizes Canadians deserve to have a say in the platforms that shape how we communicate, socialize, and participate in the economy. Echoing a similar stance in a recent piece for the Toronto Star, professors Emily Laidlaw and Florian Martin-Bariteau call for digital policy—encompassing robust privacy laws, stringent cybersecurity measures, and thoughtful AI governance—to be central to Carney’s economic and governance agenda. Advocating for proactive data sovereignty measures that limit foreign capacity to manipulate Canadian data and markets, Laidlaw and Martin-Bariteau push to address a key risk of our dependence on foreign digital platforms. The path forward is clear. The Carney government must recognize communications policy as fundamental to Canadian sovereignty, democratic integrity, and economic fairness. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
Innovators Call on Carney to Commit to CompetitionThe Canadian Council of Innovators (CCI), an association of some of Canada’s most innovative companies, is calling on the Carney government to invest in competition policy. Publishing its far-reaching "Mandate to Innovate" policy report this week, CCI recommends that the Prime Minister’s Office explicitly prioritize competition law enforcement by enhancing the Competition Bureau’s independence, mandate, and resources. To do so, CCI suggests enhancing the enforcer’s funding and making it a freestanding law enforcement agency, breaking it out of its current position within Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), the home of the government’s industrial policy making. CAMP supports the recommendation of a more independent and well-resourced Competition Bureau, calling for the same stepped-up investment in competition in the days following the outcome of the federal election. CCI’s recommendations provide a clear, actionable roadmap for the Carney government to take the next step in the evolution of Canada’s competition policy. Adopting these proposals could significantly enhance the Competition Bureau’s contribution to creating a more dynamic and resilient economy that benefits all Canadians, not just entrenched incumbents. Malice in Wonderland: Bureau Sues Theme Park for Deceptive PricingThe Competition Bureau is taking a theme park to court. Canada’s Wonderland, a large theme park in the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area, is accused of misleading consumers through deceptive "drip pricing" that hides the true cost of a ticket. Wonderland, owned by the U.S.-based Six Flags Entertainment, allegedly advertises ticket prices that exclude mandatory fees, misleading ride lovers about how much a summer day out will really cost them. The case is on theme with the Bureau’s 2024 victory over Cineplex, which resulted in a $39 million fine for similar practices related to the price of movie tickets. In launching the case, Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell reiterated the enforcer's stance, that Canadians deserve transparent pricing and fair treatment from all businesses. Whatever the market, from real estate to roller coasters, fair markets depend on honesty and transparency. Cases like these reflect the overlapping nature of consumer protection and competition laws. Hidden fees and opaque pricing erodes consumer trust and punishes competitors that are straightforward with customers in their advertising. The Bureau’s firm action signals a continued commitment to transparency and accountability in markets, reinforcing that fairness is foundational to a thriving, competitive economy. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca
Follow CAMP on Twitter LinkedIn Instagram or Facebook |
The Canadian government wanted grocers to keep it up to date on efforts to stabilize food prices. Sobeys and Metro refused
Ricochet Media
Now, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs take effect, experts warn that grocery prices in Canada could once again spike. It’s worth noting that stabilizing prices won’t undo the price hikes Canadians had already endured, said Keldon Bester from the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project.