February 1, 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 instalment we have:

• Federal government’s GST credit hike a band-aid fix to Canada’s competition problems
• CAMP comments on Competition Bureau’s updated anti-competitive conduct guidelines
• The U.K.’s competition regulator moves to counterbalance Google’s power over search

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Now let’s dive in.

Only Competition Policy Can Deliver Lasting Change to Canada’s Food System

This week, the Prime Minister announced a package of new measures to address rising food prices and food insecurity affecting Canadians across the country, with a headline expansion of the GST credit for lower-income Canadians. Support for those struggling is a welcome development, but the policies will do little to change the markets that produce the high prices Canadians are unhappy with. While the announcement included a commitment to “support the work” of the Competition Bureau, there was no detail on what that support entailed in the wake of recent cuts to the agency. One fan of the announcement? The CEO of Canada’s third largest grocery chain.

The policy package is a reminder of the tension between policy changes that redistribute the spoils from markets and those that change how they are generated in the first place. An accurate knock against competition policy is that its benefits develop over time. More competition doesn’t bring down prices overnight and the path isn’t always linear, as Canadians have seen lately in wireless prices. But without changes to competition in underlying markets, we’ll find ourselves putting another band-aid on a persistent issue soon enough.

Consolidation is at the heart of Canada’s food system, with powerful middlemen squeezing producers and consumers alike. We need to break these markets open and ensure monopolists share the burden of rising costs rather than passing them on. We also need to consider novel uses of existing policy tools in our food system. Canada’s supply management system gives us a say over key staples and could be used to steady or reduce rising prices. Both approaches would be departures from the status quo and provoke serious opposition, but this focus on markets is the only way we can achieve lasting change. You’ll never be able to cut a ribbon for more competition, but anti-monopoly investments today will pay off for generations.

📰 CAMP in the News 📰

• Bester and Falk, Can AI clinical co-pilots break open Canada’s EMR system? (Canadian Healthcare Technology)

Who Guides the Guidelines

This week, CAMP submitted our response the Competition Bureau’s consultation on the proposed Anti-Competitive Conduct and Agreements Enforcement Guidelines. Other than a mouthful, what are enforcement guidelines? Enforcement guidelines are a public reference for businesses to understand how the Bureau will enforce the Competition Act. Not sure if something a business is doing is offside? Check the guidelines. When they work well, they reflect to the public the approach the Bureau will take to protecting and promoting competition.

While the Bureau has made efforts to put the guidelines in plain English, they’re still deeply technical documents. But that’s what CAMP is here for. The good news? The guidelines describe a conduct-first approach that considers all the tools available for stopping anti-competitive conduct. They also suggest the Bureau will make greater use of interim or temporary orders that halt potentially problematic conduct while the agency investigates or litigates, speeding up relief for businesses and consumers. Finally, they detail how the agency can tackle serial acquisitions, a series of small acquisitions that can roll up markets behind our backs.

While CAMP welcomes the Bureau’s new course, there’s still room for improvement. While the guidelines note that a company with a 30% market share could hold market power, they continue to consider a firm “dominant” only when it holds around 50% of a market. We know that a company with far less than half of a market can still engage in anti-competitive conduct. While there’s more to competition than market shares, in finalizing the guidelines the Bureau should be clear that problematic conduct well below the proposed threshold can still fall within its reach.

📚 What We’re Reading 📚

• Adediji and de Beer, Trade Conflicts and Competition Policy in Canada's Digital Economy, (CIGI)
• Ramzanali and Rajan, AI Neutrality, (Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator)
• Callaci and Vaheesan, Rethinking State Capacity, (Democracy Journal)

Searching for Fairness

This week, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed measures that could change the balance of power between Google and online publishers as the giant increasingly incorporates AI into its search product. Following the CMA proposal, British publishers will be able to opt out of AI summaries and training, and Google chatbots will be obligated to clearly cite the sources for their results. Google will also be responsible for demonstrating to the CMA its rankings and summaries are fair, particularly important as sponsored content and AI summaries collide.

The action is an important step to reclaim agency over how many Britons access information online. With the company responsible for 90% of internet searches in the UK, Google can set terms for publishers while lowering the quality of its results to drive ad revenues. As a ubiquitous internet middleman Google has subverted the business models for news media and changed the way that web pages are designed to serve the search giant’s interests. Users and businesses were forced to take the deal they were offered and for years regulators seemed were unwilling to intervene.

This regulatory win was made possible because of recent moves by the British government to have a greater say over competition in digital markets. By designating Google search as having “strategic market status” (SMS) under their Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, the CMA has a more direct path to rebalancing competition in the market. While the CMA must still consult on the proposal, the move has already spurred Google to proactively increase publisher control over AI search features. By creating a new avenue to recognize dominance and empower regulators to address it, the CMA has been able to generate results much faster than the typical multi-year antitrust case.

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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