Watchdog probes suspected anti-competitive policies by largest real estate association
The National Post
New court filings by the Competition Bureau obtained by the National Post reveal that the federal watchdog launched an investigation in late June into two potentially “anti-competitive” rules and practices by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).
Cineplex hit with massive fine over 'deceptive' pricing
CBC
Cineplex has been hit with a $38.9-million fine by the Competition Tribunal for deceptive marketing practices, accused of misleading moviegoers by adding hidden fees. Cineplex says it will appeal.
Letters: Mythic Markets
September 22, 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:
Let's dive in.
Market Myths Cost the Middle ClassThere’s a long-held myth coming straight out of the 80s that free markets and global trade would save us—that they’d spark innovation, drive down prices, and boost wages. Instead, what we’ve seen over the past 50 years in Canada is just the opposite: stagnating wages, rising prices, and an economy dominated by a few powerful players, particularly in sectors like telecom and finance. Professor Dan Breznitz, in his latest Globe and Mail column, digs into why this happened. The big players, especially in the Canadian economy, aren’t just failing to innovate—they're actively hoarding wealth, earning high profits while making minimal investments in areas like research and development (R&D). Meanwhile Canadians find themselves not much further ahead than the previous generation, today’s real median wage is similar to that of the 1970s. What led us down this path? Breznitz describes our misguided faith sharply, “a sort of religious belief that happily led us to thoroughly dismantle our ability to govern, even of basic things such as ensuring competition.” Canada, like many of its international peers, turned away from competition policy under the assumption that opening some markets to global competition would take care of our problems for us. Likewise, Canada is not alone in dealing with the consequences of this turn way from competition, but that’s cold comfort to those dealing with the day to day consequences. Breznitz’s piece points to a harsh reality: abandoning our ability to govern markets doesn’t lead to prosperity but instead to monopolization and stagnation. There are a number of economic tools that can improve the lot of everyday Canadians, and a greater appreciation and implementation of competition policy is one of them. Thankfully, Canada is beginning to pick up and put these important tools to work. Hopefully we’re not too late. Toronto’s Ticketmaster in the Making: Rogers Offers to Buy Bell’s Sports StakeOn the theme of unchecked corporate power, the sports world got its own reminder this week with Rogers Communications' proposed purchase of Bell's stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) for a cool $4.7 billion. With this deal, Rogers will now own 75% of MLSE, giving it control over Toronto’s biggest sports franchises, including the Leafs, Raptors, and Toronto FC. Bell is bowing out of co-ownership, but don’t worry, they’ve locked in a 20-year media rights agreement with Rogers, meaning they’ll still be in the game—just on the broadcasting side. What does this mean for fans? Higher prices, fewer choices, and the slow crawl toward a home-grown version of Ticketmaster—where one entity has enough control to squeeze the life (and cash) out of the fan experience. By consolidating control over both the teams and the broadcast rights, Rogers is ensuring that the sports and media landscape in Toronto is increasingly dominated by a single player. Sound familiar? It’s the same playbook seen in telecom and finance, where power isn’t about fostering competition or innovation, but about maintaining control and extracting value. Unsurprisingly, Rogers sees a win for everyone, with CEO Tony Staffieri boasting that it will unlock more value for shareholders and maintain long-term Canadian ownership of these iconic teams. But as we’ve seen before, these claims of economic contributions and "investments" are about maintaining dominance rather than serving the public. As ownership continues to concentrate, fans can expect to pay even more for tickets, streaming, and merchandise. CAMP Live: AI, Big Tech, and the Future of Competition at Competition Bureau SummitThis week, CAMP was front and center at the Competition Bureau’s Competition Summit, showcasing our leadership in the fight against monopolies and for fair competition. First up, Robin Shaban, CAMP co-founder and chair, participated in a panel that focused on how AI is reshaping competition. Robin highlighted the critical need for proactive regulation as automated systems expand their role in industries like healthcare, e-commerce, and education. Later in the day, CAMP advisory board member Vass Bednar hosted a fireside chat on the potential opportunities and risks of broad AI adoption for consumers in Canada. Both talks highlighted that AI can either be a tool for fostering competition or—if left unchecked—a way for dominant firms to further entrench their monopoly power. Regulators need to be agile to ensure that AI doesn’t become just another tool for corporate consolidation. Finally, CAMP executive director Keldon Bester took to the debate stage to tackle a critical question: Can Big Tech be trusted with the future of AI? Spoiler alert: They cannot. The CAMP team laid out the case for why tech giants have proven time and time again that their monopoly positions in digital markets are incompatible with the kind of innovation and competition we need in our economy. With Big Tech’s dominance extending into AI through exclusive partnerships, acquisitions, and control over essential infrastructure, it’s clear that these companies aren’t interested in fostering a competitive environment. They’re interested in solidifying their control, and only assertive competition policy can guarantee a fairer future. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca |
Letters: Percents of a Percent
September 15, 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:
Let's dive in.
The Costs of Canada's “Ruthless” Banking OligopolyWhen RBC CEO Dave McKay described Canada's banking sector as a "ruthless oligopoly" last week, he inadvertently kicked off a flurry of commentary. This included a Globe and Mail op-ed suggesting our concentrated banking market is actually beneficial for consumers. But CAMP analysis reveals a disconnect between the data underlying that claim and the financial statements of our big banks. A major source of income from banks is net interest margin (NIM), the difference between what banks charge to borrowers and pay out to savers. The Globe piece claims that in 2021 Canada’s banks had an average NIM of 1.58%, lower than peer banks in the U.K., Australia, and the U.S., suggesting higher than expected competition between our banks. Canadian banks operate internationally and have multiple lines of business, but their Canadian personal and commercial banking segments are their most profitable. Narrowing our analysis to this segment which Canadian savers and borrowers depend on, in 2021 the asset-weighted average NIM was actually 2.42% - a full 52% higher than the figure claimed to represent fierce competition. While a little less than a percentage point difference may not seem material, in banking a seemingly thin margin goes a long way. That’s because that thin margin is applied across literally trillions in assets. This is why bankers often talk in “basis points,” that is, hundredths of a percentage point, or a percent of a percent. In 2022 alone, the difference between the two margins would have translated to $13 billion flowing to banks rather than customers. In a piece this week for CAMP, Andrew Spence, veteran finance executive and author of the upcoming book Fleeced: Canadians Versus Their Banks, details how the costs of Canada’s concentrated banking sector go well beyond higher interest rates. Spence describes how in addition to higher fees, higher rates on lending and lower rates on savings, Canada’s banks can also drag down productivity growth by constraining access to capital for businesses looking to grow. While we at CAMP would like to live in the more competitive world outlined in the Globe piece, the reality is that there is much more work to be done for Canadian savers and borrowers. “Worse Than We Thought”: the Alarming State of America's Food SystemThis week, pro-farmer research and advocacy group Farm Action released a comprehensive study titled "Kings Over the Necessaries of Life," detailing the extent of monopolization in the US food system. The findings are sobering, to say the least. The report reveals excessive concentration levels in almost every agricultural sector, resulting in a handful of firms dictating the terms for nearly every aspect of America's food production and distribution. The result of decades of lax antitrust enforcement, America’s food system is now one where farmers and workers are squeezed as consumers bear the brunt of rising prices at the grocery store. CAMP has been studying Canada’s agricultural markets and while some specifics may differ, Canada’s food system exhibits similar trends. After decades of consolidation, recent years have put the real-world impacts of concentrated market power on the dinner tables of Canadians across the country. The silver lining? As the report notes, America has faced and overcome similar challenges in the past through robust regulation to break the power of monopolies. It's a reminder that with public pressure and political will, we can reshape our markets to better serve farmers, workers, and consumers alike. Week One of Google’s Adtech Showdown WrapsThe landmark antitrust trial against Google's advertising technology practices kicked off this week, and CAMP is proud to be part of the group of anti-monopoly organizations closely monitoring the proceedings. The USvGoogleAds coalition has created an excellent set of resources for understanding the context of the trial as well as tracking ongoing developments as they happen. Week one has already produced some eyebrow-raising moments. Testimony from former industry executives painted a picture of Google leveraging its dominance in search to strong-arm publishers and advertisers with the knowledge that publishers had few alternatives. In some cases publishers were willing to take lower revenue in exchange for greater control over their ad businesses, though Google believed publishers would get over their “control loss aversion.” Perhaps most intriguing was the revelation of the "Network Bidding Agreement" between Google and Facebook, a deal that allegedly aimed to kill header bidding and cement Google's control over ad auctions. Header bidding allows publishers to offer up ad space to multiple ad exchanges simultaneously before serving ads to users visiting a site. Witness testimony makes clear why Google would want to kill header bidding, with publishers able to capture 20 - 50% more ad revenue through the practice. While it's early days, the trial is already shining a light on the complex and opaque world of digital advertising. For Canadian policymakers and competition advocates, the case is sure to produce a wealth of information on how we can approach similar challenges in our own digital markets. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca |
Rethinking Canada's Highly Profitable Banks
Andrew Spence is a veteran finance executive and the author of the forthcoming book Fleeced: Canadians Versus Their Banks, available now for pre-order.
The quarterly earnings releases of the Big Banks are appointment viewing for Canada’s business journalists. Seen as an indicator of economic health, high profits are celebrated while sub-par performance is taken a signal of deteriorating economic fortunes.
But not all profits are alike. Some firms make a lot of money by outperforming competitors, satisfying customers with quality service, and delivering valuable products. Others leverage a position of dominance to soak their customers while absorbing competitors that might upset the arrangement.
Highly profitable banks are not always an indicator of broad economic vitality. Canada is plagued by sluggish economic growth, weak productivity performance, and inferior economic adaptability, and the Big Banks are a part of it. High profits in our over-consolidated banking sector reflect a bigger slice of the pie going to the banks at the expense of savers, homeowners and entrepreneurs.
Corporations – including our banks - should be rewarded with robust profits for providing efficient solutions to everyday problems. But our banking market is neither competitive nor efficient. As oligopolies, the Big Banks deliver lower output at higher prices compared to a competitive outcome. Instead of celebrating large profits, we should instead ask whether they result from the competitive frictions and problems market dominance creates.
As I outline in some detail in my book Fleeced: Canadians Versus Their Banks, evidence of high prices and lower output is clear to see. Our banks provide woefully inadequate credit to the small and medium sized business sector at interest rates far above those in like markets, such as Australia and the UK. Small businesses are in every nook and cranny of the economy, they provide two-thirds of all jobs and generate just over half of Canada’s GDP. Inadequate financing for individually small businesses that combine to leave a large economic footprint has profound implications.
Banks are not in the risk business so they are less likely to make loans they perceive as too risky, loans that might otherwise be granted if the market were more competitive. Canada’s banks charge small and medium sized businesses much more for less credit than our peers. Confirmation on pricing comes from the OECD which showed the spread between small and large company loans in Canada was 2.48 percent compared to just 0.48 percent in the more competitive United States. Confirmation on poor credit supply comes from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Their 2023 member survey showed a ten-year trend decline in the median amount of credit offered to SMBs to just $156,000 in 2022. Moreover, after adjusting for inflation, bank financing for small business in real terms is now half of what it was in 2012 a derisory amount to finance half of Canada’s GDP.
We don’t know for sure the magnitude of lost economic output from constrained credit supply, because we cannot quantity what would otherwise have been. But what we do know is that banks are in the profitability business, working to the interests of executive ease and shareholder satisfaction which comes at a cost. When Canadian entrepreneurs cannot get project financing, they often just give up. This marker of opportunity cost shows an economy missing-out on innovation, invention, and progress because Canada’s large firms have no incentive to take up the slack.
Market dominance also creates economic problems in the labour market. Together, Canada’s banks amount, effectively, to one single employer showing little wage dispersion outside of the higher executive ranks. Their dominance of the domestic market allows them to push down labour costs. After all, if the employer sets the wage it is unlikely to be the highest possible, identifying an additional problem from which profits are made.
The dead weight loss to economic activity from high-priced, risk-reducing, credit rationing and labour market dominance are the most jarring examples of how the structure, conduct and performance of our banking system creates economic problems from which profits are made. There are many more.
Canada obsesses over financial stability above all, yet our officials show moments of doubt questioning how well the financial sector balances stability, efficiency and utility. The answer is clear: not at all well but yet nothing is done. Canadian consumers have no voice over high prices, nowhere else to turn, and scant protection compared to our peers. What then is the benefit conferred by our concentrated banking system?
Incentives matter, but our political leaders have no incentive to respond. Without a powerful consumer protection agency backed by political concern and bureaucratic support, our banks will manage their businesses the way they do – mostly in the interests of their shareholders with consumers taking the hindmost.
To address market dominance, Canada needs to slay a few sacred cows: our authorities must become more assertive and demanding. In 2016, the UK Financial Conduct Authority put the industry on notice that open banking was coming whether they liked it or not, arriving two years later to deliver better choice, better service, and at lower cost. Meanwhile, Canadians continue to wait.
Letters: Ruthless and Toothless
September 8, 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:
Let's dive in.
Banks Wish Your Mortgage Payment Was HigherRBC’s CEO thinks your monthly mortgage payment should be higher. At a recent conference hosted by Scotiabank, Dave McKay lamented the "ruthless oligopoly" in Canada’s banking sector stopping banks from passing on more of their increased funding costs as the Bank of Canada’s overnight interest rate headed north. Forgive our skepticism. Canada’s banks are some of the most profitable on the planet, with their domestic banking arms routinely printing 30% return on equity (ROE). Economic consultancy North Economics has shown that, compared to peers in the UK, Canadians overpay about $8.5 billion annually in bank fees. Meanwhile, the growing spread between lending and savings rates has netted the Big Five an additional $5 billion since interest rates began rising in 2022. McKay’s comments are particularly rich given that RBC's recent acquisition of HSBC Canada eliminated a competitor that frequently set the bar for aggressive posted mortgage rates and served as a reference for the price offers of the Big Five banks. Despite 71% of Canadians reporting that increasing debt is a threat to their financial stability, just know that the banks dream of pushing those monthly payments higher. That the bank’s are feeling a modicum of heat is welcome news, but cold comfort to Canadians. As we push for a dramatically more competitive banking sector, it's clear the banks will fight tooth and nail to maintain their privileged position. Canadians deserve more than crocodile tears from some of the planet’s most profitable financial giants. Canadian Tenants Take Action Against AI InflationIt shouldn't take a rent strike for Canadians to learn that their landlords are using pricing software at the center of a U.S. price fixing investigation. But that’s just how tenants in Toronto's Weston neighborhood inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a practice that may be more widespread than Canadians realize. Dream Unlimited, a Canadian real estate giant with $25 billion in assets, has been found using YieldStar, the same software the U.S. Department of Justice is currently suing its provider, RealPage, for facilitating rent price fixing. The revelation raises questions about how many other landlords are quietly employing similar tools, and why Canadian regulators haven't been more proactive in investigating these practices. According to documents obtained by The Breach, at least 13 major Canadian landlords with revenues over $5 billion are using YieldStar software. This suggests the scope of software-enabled collusion could be distorting rental markets across the country. Like the Competition Bureau's investigation into similar pricing software used by gas stations, the risk of software enabled collusion is not an isolated incident. Last week, CAMP explored how algorithms are being employed to manipulate markets in other industries like e-commerce. The normalization of these pricing tools across markets leaves open the question of how much our economy is ensnared in this kind of coordination, tacit or otherwise. The use of these tools in the rental market is particularly concerning as Canadians continue to bear the brunt of a housing affordability crisis. Policy makers need to be looking at every tool they have to reduce the cost of living for Canadians, and using our competition laws to go after software inflating rents should be one of them. Consolidated Capital Flows Stifle Small PlayersAn underexplored topic in the monopoly space is the consequences of consolidation of not just markets, but also the capital flows that enable the growth of individual players in those markets. As institutional investors become larger and more consolidated, even sizable businesses will struggle to compete for the attention of entities like pension funds that don’t get out of bed for investments below nine figures. This week, the Globe reports that the number of TSX-listed companies has shrunk by 40% since 2008, with few IPOs and promising firms fleeing to foreign markets. The piece highlights how financial industry consolidation has decimated support for small-cap companies. The disappearance of boutique brokerages and specialized investment funds has starved many promising firms of the capital and attention they need to thrive amid their often oligopolized competition. Without a vibrant small-cap ecosystem, innovative companies can't access the resources to boost Canada’s lagging productivity. That lack of competitive pressure allows complacent incumbents to coast, further weighing down our economic performance. Consolidation of capital flows directly feeds the high concentration of markets downstream. Breaking this cycle will require bold policy action. We need competition policy enforcement that understands the cost of consolidation in financial markets and policy that brings smaller scale investors back to the table. If you have any monopoly tips or stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at hello@antimonopoly.ca |