October 11, 2026Welcome 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:
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Competition Bureau Cans Canned Food MergerThis (Canadian) thanksgiving, there could have been less competition for canned goods. Facing Competition Bureau challenge, this week Nortera abandoned its plans to acquire B&G Foods Canada, owner of the Green Giant and Le Sieur canned and frozen vegetable brands. The decision is a win for consumers and retailers, a product of Canada’s newly strengthened merger laws, and a demonstration of what a more assertive Bureau can accomplish. Amid the still rising cost of food, Canadians need all kinds of competition on their side. But a strong defence of competition is also a reminder that we need to go on the offence if we want to make things better. Competitive pressure at the brand level is important, but it’s only one link in the chain. Nortera processes its own brands, as well as Green Giant and Le Sieur for B&G, it’s only major domestic competitor at a national level. If we want durable benefits for shoppers, we should be creating a diversified production base for important staple products instead of a monopolized one. Decades of consolidation at these layers has left us preventing a bad situation from becoming worse. In 2024, amendments to the Competition Act gave the Bureau a stronger hand in preventing mergers that might be harmful from closing before the case had been heard. Paired with a presumption against mergers in already concentrated markets, the case for the canned food merger was harder to make than it would have been a few years ago. Merging parties backing down is a sign that the tide may be turning on Canada’s waves of consolidation. Now that they know mergers are likely to meet stiffer resistance, corporate board rooms are more likely to focus on organic growth instead of trying to acquire the competition. It’s too soon to call this a trend, but it’s an early signal that investment in stronger competition laws is already paying off for Canadians. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰
Safer Social Media Means Stifling ScamsLast June, the government tabled C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, a bill that offered both a new regime for online safety and a new digital regulator, the Digital Safety Commission. The bill aims to protect Canadians, especially minors, from harmful content online, including the sharing of intimate images without consent and inciting hatred and violence. Canadians deserve to be safe online, and the Safe Social Media Act is an important step in making social media platforms accountable. But from our perspective, the bill leaves one of the biggest harms Canadians face online untouched: the epidemic of online scams. Online scams are a huge problem. Over 27,000 Canadians reported being victims of fraud last year, with reported losses over $700 million, likely just a fraction of total, with online scams making up most of these reports. Scams have inundated most online services, especially social media. In 2024, Meta estimated it served 15 billion scam ads per day. Despite their role in hosting scams, social media platforms have treated the problem as something to be managed rather than eliminated. Scam accounts are big spenders on advertising, creating a conflict in the business models of platforms torn between preventing scams and collecting ad revenues. With targeted reforms, the Safe Social Media Act could be an effective piece of anti-scam legislation when Canadians need it most. It already seeks to make social media platforms responsible for their content and design and will compel them to be more transparent about their efforts to regulators. This should be expanded to require a duty of care related to the identification and prevention of scams and the accounts engaging in them. Similar approaches taken in Australia and the UK are delivering for their citizens, and Canada should be following suit. As debate resumes on this important piece of legislation, CAMP will be arguing that safe social media means scam-free social media. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
CAMP Expert Interview Series: Rob Csernyik Tallies the Cost of Canada’s Constant CasinoSince federal and provincial governments have loosened betting laws, gambling has become increasingly present in the lives of Canadians. But more betting has meant more problems. For the inaugural installment of CAMP’s new Expert Interview Series, we were joined by Rob Csernyik, investigative journalist and author of A Losing Hand: The Human Costs of Canada’s Gambling Epidemic. Csernyik joined us to talk about the explosion of problematic gambling in Canada, the social and economic consequences that have followed, and the lack of data that could inform a robust policy response. As provinces take different approaches to gambling liberalization, Ontario is serving as an early test case. In 2022, Ontario opened its online casino and sports betting market up to private operators. In April 2022, iGaming Ontario reported 277,000 registered players and just over $1 billion in wagers. By August 2026 those figures had risen to over 1.2 million players and $9.8 billion in wagers. That won’t be a surprise to anyone who has watched any live sports lately, where betting ads are omnipresent. But the flip side of this boom are a growing number of busts. Although Csernyik points out that a lack of information is part of the problem, warning signs like a tripling of gambling-related calls to crisis lines, a quadrupling of gambling-related bankruptcies in Ontario, and a rise in gambling-related suicides suggest the province’s embrace of betting comes with serious consequences. Online betting is a reminder that more competition doesn’t always benefit Canadians. Csernyik makes a compelling case that policy makers are turning a blind eye while Canadians are dealt a losing hand. 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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