May 24, 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:

• Canadians start receiving bread price fixing settlement payouts, but the dollars don’t match the damages
• PIAC releases new research on the scope and opacity of grocery property controls in Canada
• How regulators can prevent foundation models from dominating adjacent markets for AI applications

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Now let’s dive in.

Canadians Get Some Relief as Bread Price-Fixing Settlement Payments Land

In a change of pace, this week some money flowed out of Loblaws and into the pockets of Canadians. Nearly 9 years since the bread price fixing scheme was revealed to the public, payments for Loblaws’ bread price fixing class action settlement have started going out to consumers. A quick recap: in 2017, just before Christmas, Loblaws admitted to participation in a scheme to raise the cost of bread products as much as $1.50 over 15 years. This kicks off two tracks of action, a cartel investigation by the Competition Bureau and several class action suits against the alleged participants.

To settle the class action lawsuit, Loblaws and George Weston Ltd. agreed to pay out $500 million to Canadians. This week, the fruits of that suit, a payment of either $24.11 or $49.11, are headed to Canadians who filed a claim. While Canadians should be thankful for the firms bringing these class actions, the restitution pales in comparison to the scope of the harm. Estimates put the per household cost of the scheme at $400 over the course of the conduct. Today the higher end of the payout scores you about 16 loaves of Wonder Bread.

Crime shouldn’t pay. U.S. antitrust law contains the concept of treble damages, that the financial penalty of the conduct should be three times the damage caused. With treble damages and direct consumer restitution, Canadians could have seen $1,200 instead of $49 hitting their accounts. This would be a meaningful deterrent to cartel participants and deliver a benefit greater than the federal government’s recent GST rebate at no cost to the taxpayer. After nearly a decade wait, compensation for what Canadians have had to put up with is welcome. But the delay and the amount is a reminder of how much work there is left to be done to break up Canada’s cartel economy.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• ​As Ottawa pursues nuclear, it must not create a new monopoly with AtkinsRéalis in charge (The Globe and Mail)
• ​Private Markets, Public Problems, with Rachel Wasserman (Millennial Moron)
• ​Pensions need rules to require more disclosures on investments (The Globe and Mail)

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

A new report out this week by Canada’s Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) examines the relationship between property controls, clauses in commercial leases and titles that affect how land can be used, and competition in the grocery sector. Drawing on domestic and international research, this landmark report explores how these covenants affect consumers and food distribution, and how Canada might deal with them. As the Competition Bureau investigates property controls and Manitoba’s move to void certain property controls, this report is an important contribution to our understanding of how these arrangements shape competition.

One finding in particular: PIAC notes that comprehensive data about property controls and restrictive covenants in Canada simply doesn’t exist. These terms are often tucked away in private leases, which makes finding them difficult and costly for researchers or members of the public. Without comprehensive data about what properties are governed by these covenants, Canadians are in the dark on the extent to which competition could be muted by them. Just one example of how this data could help policy makers and Canadians, mapping property controls against food deserts could reveal their role in denying people access to fresh and healthy food and pave the way for addressing the issue.

Like the bread price fixing scandal, much of the worst of monopolies occurs behind closed doors. PIAC’s research identifies crucial data gaps that put consumers, researchers, and policy makers at a disadvantage to major grocers and commercial landlords who often have overlapping roles. Answering PIAC’s calls for a national registry and database of property controls would be an excellent start and would be well matched by the Bureau by ratcheting up the legal tests for the legitimacy of existing property controls.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Nowak, Inside the Elevator Oligopoly Reshaping Canadian Cities (Do Not Pass Go)
• Vigliarolo, Sick and wrong: Ontario auditors find doctors’ AI note takers routinely blow basic facts (The Register)
• ​Invisible Assets: Canada’s IP Blind Spot (The Canadian Shield Institute)

To the Model Owners Go the Spoils

In the market for foundation AI models, the models on top of which companies build AI applications, three dominant firms have emerged: Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. This week, Asad Ramzanali and Tom Wheeler write for Brookings that regulators must act now to ensure that this dominance is not allowed to expand into the market for those same applications. As we say in the monopoly space, everything is railroad. As the models these companies develop become infrastructure for a growing number of businesses, we need to pay attention to what they do with control over the tracks.

Much of innovation in the AI application space takes the form of wrappers, services that tailor and constrain queries to foundation models to produce specific results in specific environments. This isn’t a bad thing. Training foundation models costs billions to develop and maintain, and companies provide real value by tailoring functions to specific workflows and user needs. If the advertised widespread productivity increases associated with AI are going to be realized, firms creating these services for specific applications will be doing the heavy lifting.

The problem, as Ramzanali and Wheeler point out, is that model owners are competing in this application layer as well. This gives them the ability to tilt the playing field in their favour or unfairly exclude potential competitors from access to their models entirely. When your biggest competitor can control access to a critical input to your business, you’re on the wrong side of a monopoly. The fix? Ramzanali and Wheeler say foundation model providers should be barred from unjust discrimination in pricing, speed, or the quality of service they provide competitors. With fairness and neutrality as a guiding principle, we can ensure foundation dominance isn’t allowed to crowd out innovation at the application layer.

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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