December 21, 2025

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 instalment we have:

• An American monopoly growing in the heart of Canada’s national parks
• Bank stability regulator calls for more banks and more competition in Canada
• Grocery code of conduct comes into effect while Santa takes direct action

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This is the last edition of Letters for 2025 before the CAMP team takes a break for the holidays. We’re wishing everyone a relaxing holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2026.

Now let’s dive in.

CAMP Holiday Brief: Mountain Monopolies

Who owns Canada’s national parks? When it comes to Banff and Jasper, two of the country’s most popular tourist attractions, the answer is increasingly Americans. Over decades, the U.S.-owned Pursuit has been able to establish a foothold in the parks, including a bus system, hotels, and a growing share of paid attractions. In fact, as of this year the company holds a roughly 90% market share of the attraction and sightseeing market in the parks, think gondolas, trams, skywalks, and lake cruises. As CAMP’s 2025 Holiday Brief lays out, tourists from at home and abroad may be paying the cost for this mountain monopoly.

When it comes to our work, there are a few phrases that set us on alert. But one man’s monopoly is another’s investment opportunity, and Pursuit’s own materials make this clear. With pitch decks talking about “deep competitive moats,” “high barriers to entry,” and “pricing power,” Pursuit is clear about the benefits of its hold on the attraction ecosystem. Despite the sky-high market share and monopoly talking points, neither the Competition Bureau or Parks Canada stepped in when a 2024 acquisition brought Pursuit’s share of the attraction market up to the 90% mark.

Across our economy, Canada is learning the true cost of monopolies, and to our surprise our national parks are no different. Competition in our national parks requires some nuance with the need to balance accessibility with conservation, but wherever private operators are present, visitors should benefit from competition for their dollars. Canada’s national parks should be Canadian and competitive, and by breaking up these mountain monopolies and giving Parks Canada a competition mandate we can ensure this is case far beyond the boundaries of Banff and Jasper.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• Kaufman, Competition watchdog targets American firm's monopoly in Banff-Jasper (Calgary Herald)
• Berard, Canada’s escalating food prices: the obvious solution and the systemic one (Future of Good)

Bank Regulator Learns to Love Competition

One of Canada’s more obscure regulators, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), is starting to sound a bit like CAMP. This week, OSFI head Peter Routledge called for more competition in the banking sector and committed to making it easier for new entrants, including credit unions, to enter and compete in Canada’s banking sector. To do so, the OSFI will loosen the requirements and runway required for banking licenses while maintaining the security and stability of Canada’s banking system. The move tracks with the 2025 federal budget’s efforts to promote competition in banking through legislative changes to bring fintech companies into the payment system and making switching banks easier for Canadians.

This is welcome news to us at CAMP, who along with our friends at Fintechs Canada have been advocating for OSFI to open up banking licenses to a more diverse range of players since early 2024. Banking is a foundational market for our economy, and a more competitive banking sector has the potential to upset the cozy oligopoly of the Big Five and spur innovations to better serve savers and borrowers. We’re always glad to hear regulators sounding more like CAMP, and this messaging from OSFI is a welcome sign that the days of one of Canada’s longest standing oligopolies may be numbered.

A more competitive banking sector isn’t just about lower fees and higher rates on savings accounts, it’s also about how easy it is to own a home, start a business, or even change careers. Canada’s conservative banking sector is set up to best serve one kind of customer, one with two paycheques a month from an established employer. This means people who don’t fit that mold, whether they’re working a trade or starting their own business, are often underserved by the Big Five. That needs to change as Canada continues to navigate our uncertain future. It’s going to take all kinds if we want to make a more vibrant and dynamic economy in Canada, and a competitive banking sector is part of making that possible.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Eaves, The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack (Tech Policy Press)
• Horwitz and Tham, Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue(Reuters)
• Nylen and Dolmetsch, Pepsi Gave Walmart Special Discounts, Biden-Era FTC Alleged (Financial Post)

Grocery Code Nears, but Real Change Still Needed

At the beginning of the new year, Canada’s new grocery code of conduct will come into effect, and it’s first chief enforcer is optimistic about its potential. The code seeks to mend the relationships between grocers and suppliers, racked for years with disputes over fees, rising prices, and preferential treatment. From CAMP’s perspective, the code is a positive step. But if we want a food system that delivers for all Canadians, we need to look at the bigger picture. Canada’s food system has consolidated at nearly every step in the food chain, tipping the balance to oligopolies at the expense of Canadian farmers, workers, and consumers.

We see Canadian’s anger at this arrangement every day. This week in Montreal, several Santas and masked elves stole over $3,000 of food from a Montreal Metro, which they then redistributed to a neighbourhood Christmas tree and community fridges. While we understand the sentiment, Robin Hood is not a durable solution to Canada’s problems. Last month brought another leading rise in the price of food and food bank usage continues to surge while grocers report growing profits. Canadians know they’re getting a raw deal as markets fail to perform their core function of putting food on the table at a price families can afford.

At CAMP we believe in the potential of markets, but like a garden they need tending to ensure they’re serving everyday people. Competition is one of the forces that guides this process, and for too long we’ve neglected that fact in our food system. From seeds to shelves, we need to break open the bottlenecks that have been allowed to grow around the infrastructure of our good system. The grocery code is a start, but so long as the lopsided relationship between different players persists, we’ll continue to play whack a mole going after abusive corporate conduct. Canada has new tools to tackle the monopolies around us, and it’s time we put them to work bringing fairness back to the food system.

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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