October 18, 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:

• University of Calgary report warns airport privatization without regulation is a ticket to disaster
• Citizen Lab catches spyware firms using online advertising systems to deliver zero-click malware
• Appetite for alternatives grows as Starlink’s monopoly causes problems for Ukraine

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Now let’s dive in.

U of C Prof Argues Feds Should Cool Their Jets on Airport Privatization

On September 15th, Prime Minister Carney announced that the government would seek private operation of some of Canada’s largest airports. The stated purpose to “unlock their true value” and raise funds for potential regional infrastructure has Canadians divided, with worries the move will make air travel even pricier. Now, a report from University of Calgary professor Aidan Hollis argues that the government is putting the cart (ultra basic economy?) before the horse in its rush to put airport operations in private hands.

It’s worth breaking down how airports work in Canada. The federal government owns the land and assets, but airports are administered by independent, non-profit airport authorities that reinvest surplus revenue back into the airports. Privatization would not sell the airports themselves but instead auction off the right to operate their airports and capture that revenue stream. The big problem? Practically every airport in Canada is a monopoly. This is the case even in Toronto and Montreal, where secondary airports carry a fraction of the passengers as their primary competitors.

In his report, Hollis points out that thoughtful regulation will be needed beforehand to not only lay out exactly what is for sale, but also how Canadians will be treated when a public monopoly becomes a private one. Countries that have done this successfully have brough in a firm regulatory hand to govern the behaviour of the new owners. Countries that have rushed the process, like Australia, are now dealing with the consequences. At CAMP, we believe that increasing competition among airlines, rather than playing musical chairs with airport ownership, is the only way to improve the travel experience for Canadians. But if the federal government is intent on changing airport ownership structures, they should heed the warnings of Dr. Hollis.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• ​Canadian internet providers actively lobbying as Carney gives Starlink the cold shoulder (Investigative Journalism Foundation)
• ​Domestic competition vital in attracting investments, says Competition Bureau’s Pratt (BNN Bloomberg)

Citizen Lab Shows the Malicious Potential of Online Ads

Online ads are annoying. But the system feeding you these ads has more sinister possibilities than showing you something you’ve already bought. The premise of advertising is unsolicited content displayed to a user, but online ads are more than just content. They execute code that can collect data, track users, or engage in far more nefarious behaviour. Thanks to research by the University of Toronto’s Citizenlab, there is now documentation of an entity using online advertisements to deliver powerful spyware to a specific users’ device, something they’re calling “AdFection”.

The report details how commercial products provided by mercenary spyware firms allow their customers to target individuals based on identifiers used in online advertising, like IP Address, Advertising IDs, and browser IDs. Once targeted, ads are served to these users via programmatic advertising bids, through ad networks like Google and Yandex, allowing them to be placed on virtually any website. Worse, these ads can infect users’ device without any engagement with the ads. Because the malware delivered is considered “zero-click” users do not need to interact with or even see a malicious ad for its payload to be delivered.

Online advertising exposes every internet user to potential surveillance and breaches of privacy. Vast amounts of personal information and real-time location data is broadcast to potential bidders, benign or malicious, making identifying individual users a trivial task. As CAMP has argued, this systemic vulnerability is a threat to journalists, as well as Canada’s national security, exposing military and intelligence personnel, as well as public figures, to serious risk. Short of banning targeted advertising, Citizenlab recommends implementing “know your customer” policies for major advertising networks to prevent malicious entities from slipping under the radar. Paired with stronger privacy protections for Canadians, we could make sure online ads remain merely annoying instead of harmful.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Vance-Law and Bligen, Alternatives to Concentrated AI: A Layer-by-Layer Map of What Is Being Built(Decentralization Research Centre)
• Ober, Feel Like You’re Overpaying for Hotels? Blame Expedia, a New Lawsuit Says. (The New York Times)
• ​Grocery Crisis: Why is food so expensive? (CBC Marketplace)

Ukraine Disruption Shows the Value of Space Sovereignty

The internet is the infrastructure of modern war, and ongoing conflicts have highlighted how critical connectivity is to battlefield operations. But just as in commerce, dependence on a single vendor in a conflict can raise the familiar spectre of monopoly. This week, Starlink, the service Ukraine depends on for drone operations and communications, limited its service to the country, disrupting operations and prompting an appeal to SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk. Musk in turn pointed the finger at the US government, who he said retains discretionary control over the use of Starshield, it’s military service.

This isn’t Ukraine’s first brush with the world’s richest man. In 2022, Musk declined to provide coverage in Russian occupied territory, limiting Ukraine’s offensive capabilities earlier in the conflict. Starlink represents an unprecedented degree of control over a piece of global military infrastructure by a commercial company. Over several decades, spacefaring capabilities have gradually passed from states to private companies, chief among them SpaceX. SpaceX administers Starlink, a satellite network providing connectivity to civilians and militaries, and has a near monopoly on commercial launch capability, a major chokepoint for orbital access.

As longtime allies become less reliable, it’s not just Ukraine who might be on the hunt for alternatives. Canada and our peers are taking a hard look at their dependence on Starlink and are looking to diversify their connectivity capacities. Prime Minister Carney recently announced funding for a sovereign internet network, more launch capacity, and another investment into Canadian satellite provider Telesat. NATO is working to develop its own satellite network. It won’t be easy. The task of diversification, especially with frontier technologies, is never the path of least resistance. But the disruption in Ukraine is a stark warning of the danger of dependence. Today, Canada has the luxury of being able to do this work before conflict sparks.

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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