I recently submitted a response to a consultation being held by the Canada Competition Bureau on the Anti-Competitive Conduct and Agreements Enforcement Guidelines, which are the guidelines and enforcement rules that the Bureau abides by when determining if a company has done something illegal to gain their place within the market.
The Bureau’s mission is to be an independent law enforcement agency that protects and promotes competition on behalf of Canadian consumers and businesses. We at the Consumer Choice Center also care very much for the promotion of competition which naturally allows consumers in Canada to have more choice and to live better lives. However, we have some concerns about whether or not the Bureau is actually achieving this goal in the way they choose to investigate supposed issues with competition in this country, and we laid that out in our submission.
First, I pointed out that what the Bureau should be putting first is allowing for a dynamic market without inadvertently punishing innovation. Innovation is so important for progress, you have to allow companies to try new things, sometimes fail, and sometimes succeed spectacularly, in their mission to deliver products that consumers like and need. Treating this creativity and innovation that does at times succeed and take the market by storm as something that should be investigated naturally puts a chilling effect on innovation and progress, and consumers suffer.
The Bureau guidelines state that “In general, firms have more market power the less they face effective competitive constraints”. My issue with this is that when you create a successful product that people want to use and buy, then naturally that leads to you leading the market, and your competition can’t keep up. It should not be looked at as suspicious activity worthy of investigation that a company succeeds. An entity should not be investigated, or forced to break itself up into smaller entities, just because their product or service is popular with consumers.
For example, the Bureau is currently suing Google for their advertising technology. The issue the Bureau has with Google is that they have created programs that address many parts and levels of the ad-reach market. In particular, the Bureau states:
“the Bureau found that Google has:
unlawfully tied its various ad tech tools together to maintain its market dominance…”
In the submission to the Bureau, I stated that the Bureau should acknowledge that a company building many tech tools that interact with one another does not automatically mean that Google maliciously controls the market, rather they have an understanding of what their customers need and have successfully innovated to meet those needs so that their customers can seamlessly advertise their products to consumers.
At the end of the day, the onus must be on the Bureau to show that this integration is actually harming consumers rather than just making competitors less successful, which happens when one entity brings a product to market that people prefer over another. Integration often has many positives, such as lower cost to access new technology, convenience, and reliability.
Of course, if a company’s conduct shows intentional manipulation of a dynamic market, then the Bureau should certainly investigate and even prosecute that entity. However, the terminology presented in several clauses of the Guidelines that I point out in my submission may make it seem to firms that innovation can be looked at as something to be investigated and sued, and that’s not the way to promote innovation and success within Canada.
One aspect of the guidelines that might not be immediately obvious but is immensely important is the current international landscape. The scope of the Bureau’s investigations deal with any entity that has any sort of presence within the Canadian market, so as in the case of Google, they can investigate and enforce against international organizations as well.
Obviously, international relationships are at particular strain at the moment. In my submission, I encouraged the Bureau to exercise caution in investigating international firms on the basis of simply being successful in the Canadian market. One example is tech firms: U.S. tech firms are the best in the world at innovation, and Canadian consumers benefit from that. Their entrance into the Canadian market also often creates new entrepreneurial opportunities for Canadians who can create auxiliary services or goods congruent to that new innovation.
Worrying more about how it affects competitors in Canada (who themselves are quite dynamic and tend to roll with the punches and often innovate and succeed in the Market as a result) does consumers no good. Especially while the Government of Canada presently negotiates with the United States and other international markets to make Canadians more economically better off in an uncertain world economy, it is more important than ever to encourage foreign entrance and innovation into the Canadian market.
In fact, the OECD’s 2025 Economic Survey on Canada states the following:
“Foreign and Canadian multinational companies, which are larger than average, foster innovation by bringing new technologies and services and by investing in R&D. They contribute to the bulk of business investment and have higher investment per worker than other firms. Multinationals accounted for about 37% of Canada’s private-sector employment in 2023, but they made up 65% of all business investment.”
This shows that multinational investment is an important part of the Canadian economy. If the Bureau investigates every instance of investment that ends up being enormously successful in Canada out of suspicion that they have done something uncouth to gain market dominance, that would have the unintended consequence of spooking future investment in Canada and harming consumers even further. This is particularly important as Canada soon heads in to negotiate the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
I covered much more in the submission, and I encourage you to give it a read. Overall, the recommendations strongly urge the Bureau to ensure they launch investigations and prosecute on the basis of allowing for a dynamic market, not punishing innovation, and working towards positive relationships with international partners. This is the way towards more open markets that benefit all Canadian consumers and businesses, and allows for prosperity for all.
