August 17, 2025Welcome 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:
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CAMP Urges Feds to Invest in the Competition BureauIt’s pre-budget season in Ottawa, and amid a major federal government spending review, departments are deciding how spending cuts will fall across the public service. Who and what is cut in the coming years will have a material impact on what the federal public service can deliver for Canadians. That’s why, in our submission to the government’s pre-budget consultation, CAMP is calling on the federal government to invest in, rather than cut, the Competition Bureau. The budget of the department in which the Bureau sits was just over $10 billion in 2024. Of that $10 billion, the Bureau accounts for less than 1% at just north of $70 million. This was money well spent, with estimates showing that the Bureau delivered $30 of savings for every $1 invested in the enforcer – over $2 billion in value every year. Those savings come from enforcement action in markets that matter to Canadians. As of today, the Bureau has ongoing investigations into anti-competitive conduct in groceries, gas, real estate, and a host of other markets. Pair these with the Bureau’s ongoing case against search giant Google and you’re talking about the future of competition in markets worth tens of billions of dollars annually. In 2023 and 2024 the government made important moves to strengthen Canada’s competition law. But these changes will be one step forward and two steps back if the government cuts the Bureau’s funding and asks the enforcer to do more with less. While flat cuts across the board offer senior administrators an easy way out of internal politics, the crucial work of the Competition Bureau merits more, not less resources. Its time to double down on protecting Canadians and invest in an empowered Competition Bureau. 📰 CAMP in the News 📰
Big Cloud’s Push to Own the FutureCloud computing has become the underlying infrastructure for much of our digital lives. Cloud servers store our information and run the digital products we use, with businesses and governments alike dependent on their services. Cloud computing centralizes control over our information- rather than storing things locally, they’re kept on massive remote data centres. It’s a way of computing that is incredibly expensive to set up and maintain and only works well at scale. Those economies of scale come with serious worries about the consolidation of economic power in and beyond the cloud market. Two thirds of the global cloud market is dominated by just three companies – Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. But new research out this month from Nathan Kim and David Gray shows that these companies, referred to as Big Cloud, are seeking to dominate not just the market for cloud computing, but adjacent technology markets as well. Investing in innovation isn’t bad, but Big Cloud’s strategy is about control. These firms use investment into companies and startup accelerators to ensure that new technologies are dependent on Big Cloud as both investors and service providers, shutting out competitors who don’t have a side business as major venture capital firms. The research is a reminder that we need to take a wider view when we think about control in markets or an economy. A narrow antitrust analysis would care only about dominance or investments in the market for cloud computing, but it’s clear that this dominance is being put to work in a broader ecosystem, not just a single market. If countries don’t move decisively to blunt this accumulation of economic power, Big Cloud will be setting the rules in markets far beyond cloud computing. 📚 What We’re Reading 📚
Meta’s Reckless Handling of Children and ChatbotsWould you trust the makers of Facebook to babysit your kids? In the past two decades we’ve ceded more control of our lives to tech companies – how we get around, how we access information, and how we connect with one another. Unfortunately, this process seems poised to intensify with the integration of large language models and chatbots into the services we use every day. This is bad enough for adults, but the situation becomes even more fraught when kids get in the mix. As more young people engage with AI chatbots, they can enter unpredictable and unsupervised situations facilitated by corporations totally unaccountable for their consequences. This week, Reuters revealed internal Meta documents that show how while employees play whack-a-mole to prohibit egregious and dangerous prompts, young users can easily find their way into racist, violent and sexual conversations. This is not Meta’s first foray into social experimentation at scale. They’ve used their algorithms to spread “emotional contagions” that made users sadder, amplified divisive content, and conditioned users to seek dopamine hits through their platforms. When we refuse to regulate these platforms, we give up control of aspects of our lives, whether economic, social, or political. This task is frustrated by the power these companies have been able to accumulate, not just in their millions of lobbying dollars but also their ownership of key channels of communication. Meta puts up a good show when it reacts to publicity crises like these, but they can never treat the true cause: their business model. To change course requires two tall orders. We must break up the power that allows these companies to act with impunity and regulate the business models that makes putting dangerous chatbots in the hands of children profitable. 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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