February 16, 2024

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 installment we have:

• Liberal leadership candidates begin to put out initial competition policy platform promises
• The Trump administration’s brazen attack on an important defender of American consumers
• Why anti-monopoly policy is the best path forward for the future success of Democrats in the U.S.

Now let’s dive in.

What are Liberal Leadership Candidates Saying on Competition?

As the race for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party heats up, competition policy promises are starting to pop up on platforms. In the interest of saving you time, CAMP is providing our view on how candidates stack up on this important issue so far and what we hope to see in the future.

To date, both Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould have included commitments related to protecting Canadians from monopolies. In late January, Karina Gould promised to increase the powers of the Competition Bureau as part of her affordability plan, showing a welcome understanding of the harms of mergers and consolidation. Going even further, this week Chrystia Freeland laid out an ambitious commitment to overhaul the Competition Bureau and to break open vertically integrated grocery markets. As CAMP has shown, corporate concentration is endemic to the entire food system, but tackling concentrated power at the grocery aisle is an excellent start.

The same cannot be said for Mark Carney, who has so far avoided making any promises on competition. While Carney’s 2022 book Value(s) included discussion of the importance of strong competition policy in a fair economy, that enthusiasm has yet to translate to policy commitments. Silence on the issue to date is notable given the predominance of affordability concerns for Canadians heading into the leadership race. Competition is not an abstract issue — Canadians feel it every time they pay sky-high grocery bills, fight telecom oligopolies for basic services, or see independent businesses struggle against corporate behemoths.

With other candidates already staking claims on reforming competition law, we’re on the lookout for Carney to clarify what he’ll do to tackle Canada’s monopoly problem. With debates on the horizon, this will be an early test of whether anti-monopoly policy takes center stage—or is left as an afterthought in the fight for Canada’s economic future.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Sohrab Ahmari, How Elon Musk is a Danger to Trumpism (UnHerd)
• Brendan Sinclair, How an IT worker from Saskatchewan made the best game of the year (The Logic)
• Marshall Steinbaum, A Real Post-Neoliberal Agenda (Boston Review)

Wall Street and Big Tech’s Coup Against Consumer Protection

The Trump administration’s attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is rapidly escalating into an all-out war on financial oversight and consumer protection. Created in 2008 after the financial crisis, the agency is being dismantled by the powerful interests it was tasked with protecting Americans from: Big Money and Big Tech.

Elon Musk and Trump’s Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought have already halted enforcement actions, litigation, and supervision. Nearly all probationary employees have been fired, and reports indicate a plan to purge 95% of the agency’s workforce. Meanwhile, the White House has even set up a tip line encouraging financial firms to report CFPB regulators who continue to enforce consumer protections.

This is an unprecedented attack on an institution, but the agency isn’t going down quietly. On Friday, lawyers representing the agency’s staff union won a temporary halt to the firings and the deletion of critical enforcement data. The fate of the CFPB is still uncertain, but the challenge is emblematic of the resistance that is emerging to the rapid fire dismantling of important institutions under the Trump administration.

If the CFPB goes down, the consequences for American consumers are clear: expect more fraud, illegal foreclosures, predatory lending, and a free-for-all for financial giants who see customers as little more than revenue streams. The CFPB was one of the key consumer protection defenses for Americans—and now, it’s on life support.

An Anti-Monopoly Future for Democrats

If there’s one lesson to take from the situation in the U.S., it’s that anti-monopoly isn’t just good policy—it’s good politics. As American Economic Liberties Project’s executive director Nidhi Hegde lays out in Democracy Journal, corporate concentration is at the root of affordability crises, wage stagnation, and political instability. Fighting monopolies isn’t just an economic stance—it’s a way to rebuild trust in our democracies.

The Biden administration’s anti-monopoly enforcers—like Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at DOJ—delivered some of the biggest wins of his presidency: stopping mega-mergers, challenging Big Tech, and curbing corporate abuses. But Democrats often failed to frame these victories as part of a cohesive economic vision. Instead, they let corporate lobbying and media spin define their actions as “overreach.”

Now, with the CFPB’s possible dismantling, the stakes couldn’t be clearer. The path forward for Democrats isn’t watering down their agenda to appease corporate donors—it’s embracing anti-monopoly as a core economic and political identity. The fight against corporate power is the fight for economic freedom. Will Democrats seize it, or will they let the forces of consolidation continue unchecked?

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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