August 16, 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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Money Men Make Major Maneuver on Money Mover MonerisIf you’ve bought something in-person in Canada, you’ve probably encountered the name Moneris at checkout. Founded as a joint venture between RBC and BMO in 2000, Moneris has grown to facilitate a third of transactions in Canada through its roughly 325,000 machines where shoppers tap, insert, and swipe their debit and credit cards. This week, it was announced it would be sold to US-based private equity firm Francisco Partners for $2 billion, with the gains split 50/50 between the banks, who have each agreed to exclusively refer their commercial clients to Moneris. The sale of Moneris to a U.S. private equity firm has several implications, including the ongoing discussion of Canada’s rocky relationship with Americans. If the partnership with our primary trading parter continues to be lopsided, should we be selling off the pipes of our economy to firms headquartered there? Beyond these concerns, there are risks straight out of CAMP’s Private Equity Playbook that could have implications for Canadian consumers and businesses regardless of the health of our relationship with our southern neighbours. That playbook includes burdening acquired companies with unnecessary debt, boosting returns by issuing unsustainable dividends, and jacking up prices while pulling back on quality. This means the payment processor could start taking a bigger bite of the transactions it facilitates. So, who is responsible for protecting the interests of Canadians here? The state of payments competition is unlikely to change, so the Competition Bureau can’t be counted on to intervene. The Minister of Industry could conduct a review based on national security concerns, but this is an outside chance as the government attempts to revive trade negotiations. That leaves the Bank of Canada, who could block the transaction by refusing registration under the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA), but who is solving for operational risk and stability instead of competition. While early days, the structure and timing of the Moneris acquisition could mean that a transaction that increases prices for consumers and businesses slips through the cracks of Canada’s regulatory machinery. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰
B.C. Gets Its Consumer Protection Game in GearIt’s a good time to be a consumer in British Columbia. New consumer protection laws are now in force in the province, providing a suite of protections focused on the subscription economy. The law now requires subscription services to notify subscribers before any subscriptions are automatically renewed, and prevents providers from unilaterally changing the terms of your subscriptions. Subscriptions can now be cancelled at any time without penalty, and consumers must be refunded the prorated cost of the unused service. The bill also requires subscriptions and other consumer contracts to be easy to understand and easy to cancel, following the model of other click-to-cancel rules in North America. These changes are a big win for B.C. residents. Recurring subscriptions are a fact of life for nearly every consumer. The proliferation of these subscriptions means it’s easy for consumers to lose track and pay for services they no longer need. Once you realize you no longer need a service, some companies make the process of cancelling a maze of phone trees and customer service representatives, a process often referred to as the roach motel. B.C.’s action is part of a larger trend of regulators at all levels setting a floor for the kind of treatment consumers can expect. Updates to consumer protection laws in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and B.C., as well as U.S. states like New York, show that elected officials across the board recognize that consumers need more protection when it comes to the avalanche of annoyances that can add up to serious money at the end of the month. Competition is one of the strongest protections against the exploitation of consumers, but governments can lend a hand by setting the standards consumers can expect when they sign up for their next subscription. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
Gen Z Increasingly Rolling the Dice for RetirementYoung people can’t catch a break. After living through economic crises, the erosion of public institutions, and the normalization of precarious gig work, it’s not surprise that luck is increasingly appearing like the only viable path to financial stability. Data from the U.S. appears to bear this phenomenon out, with Bloomberg reportingthat 26% of Gen Z see sports betting as part of their long term financial strategy, and that 52% of them have diverted investment funds to sports-betting in the last year. Once confined to casinos and horse tracks, the advent of online and mobile betting has put a casino in all our pockets. That proximity has been reinforced by a media environment desperate for advertising dollars. Today sporting events are riddled with ads encouraging complex but cheap parlay bets, with odds so low Ontario used to treat them like lotteries. Reading the Bloomberg pieces, one could argue that investing is a bet by another name, and that this shift is benign. But financial markets serve a purpose in allocating capital and rewarding companies that meet and exceed the expectations of investors. Online betting does little more than re-allocate money out of your wallet. We’re not in the tut-tutting business at CAMP. The rise in gambling isn’t a moral failing on the part of young people, it’s a consequence of a permissive approach to predatory business models and an economy that increasingly resembles a casino. It may seem like a luxury amid global economic routs, but Canadians need to consider what kind of economy we want to be building: one where fair competition rewards those who put in the hard work and contribute to products and services we use and enjoy, or one where the surest bet is a throw of the dice. 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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