July 5, 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 installment we have:

• A Canada Day reminder that Canada’s national parks should actually be Canadian
• How the growth of buyout private equity in Canada is making our businesses more brittle
• Reporting reveals the explosion in U.S. egg prices was driven by monopoly manipulation

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Now let’s dive in.

Whose Parks are They Anyway?

National holidays on a Wednesday are never ideal. But this week, Canadians across the country celebrated Canada Day with their friends and families. And what’s a more Canadian thing to do than to load up the car and enjoy one of our famous national parks? But Canadians looking to enjoy the natural wonders of our country may be surprised to learn about an American monopoly lurking in the Rocky Mountains.

In our 2025 brief, Mountain Monopolies, CAMP explained how Canada’s park and competition regulators allowed an American company to establish a foothold in Banff and Jasper, home to the country’s most popular national parks. The consequences are plain: the company’s own investor materials tout the “pricing power” of these “deep competitive moats.” With operations spanning attractions, hospitality, and transportation, Pursuit has become a major presence in the parks, with no sign of slowing down. The result is less choice and higher prices for visitors to the crown jewels of Canada’s park system.

Six months since we published that brief, nothing has changed. What needs to be done? Past acquisitions should be reversed, and Parks Canada must be given a mandate to protect competition and Canadian ownership in our national parks. There is a narrative, especially around Canada Day, that Canada’s parks should belong to Canadians. This Canada Day, the presence of this mountain monopoly is a reminder that more work needs to be done to make that narrative a reality.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• ​StubHub sold ‘ghost tickets’ for World Cup months before real ones were issued, CBC finds (CBC)

The Costs of Private Equity’s Debt Wish

The supply shocks of COVID-19 and the second term of President Trump have made not just the growth, but the resilience of the Canadian economy a top-of-mind concern. While the conversation often occurs at the macro level, resilience is the product of individual actors being able to withstand the shocks of economic cycles. In the Toronto Star this week, CAMP fellow Rachel Wasserman lays out how the growing role of private equity in one slice of the economy is undermining that resilience.

The unfortunately named junk bond issuers – riskier companies who must pay a premium on debt to attract lenders – are increasingly entangled with private equity firms. Nearly absent in the early 2010s, private equity now represents nearly half of the speculative debt asset class that these businesses rely on. The problem? The extractive playbook of these buy out private equity firms burdens these companies with unnecessary debt, making them more vulnerable to external economic shocks.

As more firms become less resilient, the risk to the broader economy increases should a downturn occur. With cash that would otherwise fund investment or rainy day reserves going to private equity firms, Canada’s economy ends up with sluggish growth and a cracking foundation. To create a more resilient economy, Canada needs to reduce the role of private equity and foster a culture of building rather than extracting value from businesses.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Marche, The Rupture (Gloves Off)
• Newman, Lawless Antitrust (Fordham Law Review)
• Hettinga and Wallach, Hamburger Hell (Rethink Trade)

Low Eggspectations

As we’ve seen in recent years, a rise in the price of a staple good is consistent fuel for furious discussion about the cause of the increase and what, if anything, should be done about it. This was certainly the case for the explosion in the price of eggs in the United States from 2022 – 2025, which saw average prices jump from $1 USD to $8 USD per dozen. While the standard story was a price response to constrained supply following the onset of avian bird flu, there was always more to the story. In 2025, anti-monopoly lawyer Basel Musharbash released a blockbuster investigation into the long-running effort to monopolize and manipulate American egg markets.

This research was quickly met with derision from an economist crowd who consistently believe that anti-monopolists are jumping at shadows and that there was nothing to be done about inflated prices. But this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on texts and emails between executives of the American egg producers who dominate the market that clearly indicate a coordinated effort to push up the price of the staple food.

These kinds of communications becoming public are a) grimly entertaining and b) a reminder of how business works in monopolized markets. “Great job in the northwest today!” says one executive to another as their wholesale bidding strategy results in record-breaking prices for American families already struggling with the cost of inflation. When we allow markets to consolidate, we increase the risk of this cozy behaviour proliferating. We’re not in the “I told you so” business, but the revelation of this price fixing scheme is a reminder that sometimes there really is something, or someone, in the shadows.

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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