July 19, 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 Can Be Canada’s Capital CatalystIn the Carney government’s plan to pivot Canada’s economy away from U.S. dependency and seek new trade relationships, the word on everyone’s lips is investment: public or private, domestic or foreign. The logic is clear, Canada’s productivity growth continues to lag, and investment is needed to break out of this state of stagnation. Alongside trade deals, the Carney government has put investment-focused tax credits and cutting red tape on the menu. But despite years of record private sector profits, investment numbers continue to lag. As CAMP executive director Keldon Bester argues in a new piece for Corporate Knights, we shouldn’t be surprised. To really drive the kind of investment that will bolster Canada’s productivity, we need to expose more sectors to competition and increase the level of competition for Canadian workers. Without the pressure of competition, firms have little incentive to reinvest profits into their own businesses. Without competition for workers, firms are equally unlikely to substitute labour for labour-saving technologies. For decades Canada has relied on a model that sacrificed competition for consolidation and kept Canadian wages suppressed to attract foreign companies with our highly educated discount workforce. We need to reverse course on both approaches if we want to break out of the secular stagnation that has plagued Canada’s productivity growth. As the federal government works to operationalize a “whole of government” approach to competition, it needs to look beyond tax credits and red tape to do so. The narrative that greater profits will spur investment conflicts with the data on how companies are behaving as profits climb. While reducing regulatory barriers can help, effects will be concentrated to industries where large-scale projects crisscross federal and provincial regulatory schemes. By unleashing competition for markets and for workers, Canada can build a high productivity, high-wage economy. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰· Google must share search data, open Android to rival AI firms, EU says (Global News) Beef Price-Fixing Settlement Reminds Us of Canada’s Cartel ProblemNot too long ago, Canadians got a few bucks back from a class-action settlement over the long-running bread price-fixing scandal between major bakers and grocers. Now, Canadians who purchased beef products since 2015 may be eligible for part of an $8 million settlement with cattle slaughter firms, JBS and National Beef while litigation against other defendants, Tyson and Cargill, continues. Class action lawyers presented the court with evidence that over a seven-year period, executives and employees communicated with the aim to artificially limit the supply of beef, driving up prices and maximizing profits. In allowing consolidation to run wild, Canada has created the conditions for cartels to flourish. The situation in beef processing is extreme. Three facilities, two owned by Cargill and one owned by JBS, account for 85% of Canada’s total capacity. This gives the biggest firms an incredible amount of power as the gateway to markets for beef producers in Canada. While record low supplies of beef have shifted the power back to ranchers temporarily, the conditions of cartelization will remain unless market concentration falls. Canada’s new national food security strategy includes efforts to make it easier for regional players to compete in the national processing market, but Canadians also need to see stepped up cartel enforcement to deter future backroom deals. Price fixing scandals like these will continue to emerge until we have diversified markets and real penalties for cartel conduct. A decade long wait for restitution is not enough to dissuade would-be cartel members. Canada needs to have more eyes on our markets and move faster to break up the cartels making life more expensive. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
FTC Settlement Hands Control Back to FarmersFarming is notoriously difficult. Modern day farming relies on an array of complex machinery, and when that machinery breaks down a few days of downtime can make all the difference. But as the complexity and digitization of farming equipment has increased, the control individual farmers have over equipment has headed in the opposite direction. Today farmers are largely at the mercy of authorized dealers who control both access and pricing to repairs and valuable data. That tightening grip birthed the right to repair movement around the world, one that just notched a major victory against John Deere through the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Beginning in 2022 with complaints from farmers’ unions and research groups, the case against John Deere brought by Lina Khan’s FTC alleged that the company restricted software and data necessary to perform standard repairs. This forced farmers to pay higher prices at licensed dealers where ownership has increasingly consolidated into larger corporate networks. Last week, the settlement reached because of the FTC case ordered John Deere to make repair resources available to independent repair shops for 10 years, on fair and reasonable terms. This means independent shops can now compete and bring down prices and wait times for farmers. There are caveats to this victory. John Deere’s monopoly over farming equipment remains in place. They will still maintain proprietary control over the software and hardware necessary to repair their equipment. Interoperability, the ability to use third party hardware and software to repair farm equipment, is not a requirement of the settlement. But Canada can take these caveats and craft a stronger approach to opening the farming equipment market. Interoperability and loosening the intellectual property grip of companies like John Deere would hand more control to farmers when they need it most. Canada correctly has food security on the brain, and empowering farmers must be a part of that work. 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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