March 1, 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:

• Carney’s take on bringing down the cost of living misses his anti-monopoly opportunity
• Goodlife flirts with the private equity playbook after Apollo investment in the Canadian fitness giant
• Netflix walks away from blockbuster Warner Bros. bid after Paramount goes all-in

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Now let’s dive in.

How to Talk about the Cost of Living Without Talking about the Cost of Living

In recent months, the Carney government’s approach to bringing down the cost of living is coming into view. In late January, the Carney government announced an increase to the GST tax credit for low-income Canadians, along with a grab bag of measures to support producers and reference to supporting the work of the Competition Bureau. This week, the government released a video of the Prime Minister laying out his theory of how the government plans to bring down costs for Canadians. The problem? The video spends almost no time talking about bringing down costs for Canadians.

The video walks through the story of pandemic supply chain shocks driving increased inflation that has left Canadians with increased costs while wages struggle to catch up. Carney recognizes that while inflation has cooled, food prices continue to lead the average, and Canadians continue to struggle with the cost of putting food on the table. But when it comes to bringing those costs down, the government is sticking with admiring the problem. Instead of putting forward solutions, the Carney government’s approach is limited to a tax credit bump and banking on productivity to eventually bring up wages.

We never recommend reading the comments, but let’s get a sample of reactions: “address monopolies,” “stop price gouging,” “we hate oligarchs and monopolies.” We’re not running a bot farm, we swear. Canadians understand that oligopolies have benefitted from the inflation that has dogged the economy in recent years. While additional relief for struggling folks is welcome, the Carney government is leaving a powerful tool on the table: competition. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Financial relief and rising wages paired with assertive action to break up oligopolies would deliver higher paycheques and lower prices at checkout. As an economist who wrote his masters thesis on competition, Carney understands this more than most. That’s why it’s disappointing to see his government tie one hand behind its back in the fight for affordability.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• Zhu, A conspiracy or just a problem? Expert explains why your groceries might weigh less than the package (NOW Magazine)

Midlife Fitness

The days of the free Goodlife bag may be over. This week, American private equity giant Apollo announced a strategic minority investment into the privately owned Canadian company Goodlife Fitness, which operates over 400 gym locations under different brands across Canada. The Apollo-Goodlife deal is being pitched as providing the fitness company with additional capital for expansion, but we know from experience what to expect when private equity comes to town.

Private equity buying a stake in a company changes the logic driving the business. While business owners gain by building the value of companies, private equity more frequently gains by extracting what value has already been generated. This phenomenon was extensively documented by CAMP fellow Rachel Wasserman in her 2024 report, The Private Equity Playbook. What this extraction process often looks like is the simultaneous raising of prices while pulling down quality. For Goodlife customers this could mean rising membership fees, lower spend on keeping facilities in good shape, and even an end to their iconic free bag on sign up.

While certainly no longer a small business, what’s going on at Goodlife is emblematic of a broader trend in Canada. Small and mediums sized businesses are amid a succession crisis, with owners reaching retirement age and having no plan for business continuity. An increasingly popular choice for owners in sectors like dental and veterinary care, for example, is to sell their businesses to private equity-owned conglomerates engaged in roll ups of these once diverse markets. Canadian businesses need to know about different options for succession, like employee ownership, and regulators need to keep an eye on these creeping acquisitions. Having the private equity playbook applied to the Canadian economy is a recipe for a deeply unfit economy.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Social Capital Partners, Market study submission: Competition in financing for Canada’s SMEs​
• Penrose, Group including TurboTax, H&R Block lobbying Ottawa on tax auto-filing (Investigative Journalism Foundation)
• Flight, The 2026 Global Intelligence Crisis (Citadel Securities)

Netflix is Out, Paramount is In

What a difference a week makes. After the board of Warner Brothers Discovery declared Netflix the superior buyer, the streaming giant has declined to beat Paramount’s new offer of $111 billion USD, paving the way for Paramount to acquire the entertainment conglomerate. From an anti-monopoly standpoint, very little has changed. Though a Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. has different contours than a Netflix takeover, the outcome remains the same: consolidation of important entertainment and news markets.

One thing that has changed though is the White House’s approach to the transaction. After waffling on whether he would insert himself in the deal process, Paramount’s owner, David Ellison, is directly aligned with Trump administration, and has used their earlier acquisition of CBS News to bring the network in line with the President’s agenda. But the federal government is not the only game in town. California’s state attorney general is currently reviewing the deal, and given the centrality of the entertainment industry to the state economy the stakes are high.

In the end, Paramount might consider itself lucky if regulators block the deal. Warner Bros. is a legendary M&A albatross. In 2001, early internet giant AOL purchased Time Warner for $183 billion USD, widely considered one of the worst mergers in history. In 2018, telecom giant AT&T was allowed to acquire the once again independent Time Warner for roughly $108 billion USD, promptly realized the mistake it had made, and spun the company off in 2022 through a merger with Discovery Inc. Now less than four years later, Paramount believes this time will be different. But whether it makes business sense for Paramount is beside the point. Regulators in the U.S. and around the world need to present a strong defense of competition and diversity in the entertainment market and block this illegal transaction.

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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