In 2022, Pemberton started My Merch, a movement against the entertainment giant demanding a cut of artists’ merchandise sales in venues it owned. That effort led to more than a hundred venues signing on and a wave of public awareness around the issue.

Now, on his just released new album Forager, the former Edmonton poet laureate uses his love of vintage clothing and thrifting as a bridge to connect with his immediate surroundings and to return to a less ephemeral existence that isn’t so controlled by big corporations.

He goes further in his upcoming book, Ways of Listening, in which he explores how to really connect with music – without relying on algorithms.

He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to talk about the ongoing Live Nation monopoly cases in both the U.S. and Canada, the future of Spotify and streaming, and how the fakeness of artificial intelligence is going to make people treasure real music again.

Check out Forager here. His upcoming book, Ways of Listening, is out May 26 and can be found here. And of course, check out his regular musings on Substack.

We also mention The Artist Economy, a Substack by Joel Gouveia, which can be found here.

The weekly competition news roundup on a Friday afternoon? Wha?!? It’s happening, people! Or… it is this week, at least. I’m trying some things out and am wondering if more or less people might read this at the end of the week rather than on a weekend morning. Let’s find out, shall we? And with no more ado, let’s get to it:

In a classic let’s-distract-from-the-bad-news-with-some-good-news move, the CRTC issued two decisions on Friday that will affect internet and wireless customers.

First, the bad news: final rates on wholesale internet access that affect most Canadians are largely unchanged, a decision that smaller service providers say “will end meaningful consumer internet competition in Canada.”

Wholesale rates are an arcane subject that can cause eyes to glaze over, but they’re vital because they do much to determine what the vast majority of Canadians pay for internet service, both directly and indirectly.

In a nutshell, wholesale rates are what internet providers pay to large telcos to use parts of their networks so that they can deliver services to their own customers. This has generally applied to smaller, independent providers such as TekSavvy and National Capital FreeNet but it has also become relevant for big companies including Bell and Telus, who were recently given access to each others’ networks outside of their home territories by the CRTC.

The idea is that consumers should have multiple providers to choose from for their internet services, but the cost of building many networks to homes is prohibitive and impractical, since nobody wants their lawns dug up by a dozen companies installing cables. Wholesale-based competition – service providers sharing networks in exchange for access fees – is the solution.

Those access rates, which the CRTC arrives at after studying costs submitted by network owners and then adding a suitable markup, are the biggest operating expense for indie providers.

As such, they do much to determine the competitive landscape for internet service in Canada. If wholesale rates are low, indie providers can offer services for lower prices and force the big companies to follow suit. If the rates are high, prices for consumers stay high and the indies have trouble competing – especially since the big companies don’t have to pay themselves wholesale fees. As an extra gut punch to smaller competitors, the big companies often sell internet services to consumers at prices below what they charge at wholesale.

So what did the CRTC do about these rates on Friday? Here are the interim access rates on Bell and Telus networks for services up to 1.5 gigabits per second that the CRTC set in 2024, compared with the new ones introduced today:

• Bell (Ontario and Quebec): $68.94, now $68.26

• Telus (Quebec): $65.25, now $57.86

• Telus (Alberta and B.C.): $80.41, now $77.21

As is clear, only Telus’ access rate in Quebec has seen a significant change while its fees in the west are decreasing slightly. Bell’s rates are effectively the same.

In its press release, the CRTC trumpeted these incremental changes as taking “action to help deliver more choice of affordable internet services.” That statement might possibly be justified by the fact that the regulator did actually lower one other type of wholesale fee – so-called capacity charges.

On top of paying a per-customer access fee to the network owner, wholesale-based service providers must also pony up for how much internet bandwidth their customers might actually use at a given time. Known as Capacity-Based Billing (CBB), it’s bought in 100-megabit-per-second increments, and the CRTC did in fact lower prices here. Here are the comparisons for Bell and Telus again:

• Bell (Ontario and Quebec): $64.24, now $44.19

• Telus (Quebec, Alberta and B.C.): $75.86, now $42.12

Do these changes make a difference? Not at all, according to the indies. They say CBB makes up only a small fraction of a customer’s total bill, whereas the wholesale access fee is much more important.

“Dropping the main [fibre] line rates from $68.94 to $68.26 is a slap in the face: so much time and work spent for nothing – they can't think it will have any impact for the independents,” says Shelley Robinson, executive director of National Capital FreeNet. “Part of the reason the Commission keeps dropping CBB is because it does so little and yet they can say they dropped wholesale rates.”

It’s worth noting that these “final” rates can also be appealed in various ways by all involved parties. Given the history of wholesale rates in Canada, it’s a really safe bet that someone will.

It’s also worth noting that these rates only apply to fibre networks. As TekSavvy notes, only a fraction of Canadians are on fibre networks, while the majority are on cable owned by the likes of Rogers and Videotron.

“The CRTC has kept the same high wholesale rates it already set years ago. After waiting three years for this decision, it is frustrating that nothing has changed to help increase real competition or lower retail prices for fibre internet,” says Andy Kaplan-Myrth, vice-president of regulatory and carrier affairs at the company.

“We continue to wait for the CRTC's decision for the vast majority of wholesale rates, including cable internet rates. These rates have been unchanged for years and remain outstanding even as the cable carriers upgrade and replace those networks, evicting small independent competitors from wholesale access to thousands of consumers’ homes.”

The ongoing saga of wholesale rates on those “older” networks, the CRTC’s inability or unwillingness to finally set them, the resultant demise of many indie ISPs, and the role that now apparent Ontario Liberal leader candidate Navdeep Bains played in it, is a tale that we’ll relate here shortly.

But for now… what about the good news mentioned above? Oh yes: the CRTC also announced click-to-cancel rules for telcos, meaning that internet and cellphone providers will have to make it easy for customers to modify or cancel their services online without having to call in and inevitably spend hours on the phone with an agent.

Of course, the bad news to that good news is that these rules don’t take effect until a year from now, which is plenty of time for the telcos to appeal them or otherwise try to water them down.

QUICK UPDATE: Seconds after I hit send on this newsletter, the Competitive Network Operators of Canada – an advocacy group representing small ISPs – issued the mic drop of all mic drops with a full-page statement on its website proclaiming that, “CRTC final fibre rates end independent internet competition for consumers in Canada.”

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT

• Canada’s independent theatres are urging the Competition Bureau to take a good hard look at the proposed takeover of WARNER BROS. by PARAMOUNT because of its potential impact on film exhibition here. In an open letter to the enforcement agency, the Network of Independent Cinema Exhibitors (NICE) highlights that Warner Bros. holds “one of the most significant repertory catalogues in cinema history,” which many second-run theatres depend on, and that it is currently “the most exhibitor friendly major studio.” NICE, which represents more than 140 theatres across the country, points to Disney’s takeover of Fox in 2019 as a cautionary tale. Since the merger, Disney has imposed more onerous terms on independent theatres and significantly decreased the number of films they can access. “NICE urges the Competition Bureau to conduct a full and rigorous review of this transaction, with specific attention to its impact on Canadian filmmakers, theatrical distribution in Canada, and on independent exhibitors,” the group says.

• On that front, opposition to PARAMOUNT’s proposed acquisition is also growing in Hollywood, despite WARNER BROS. shareholders approving the transaction. A letter initially signed by more than 1,000 actors and production workers has now grown to more than 4,000 signatories, with the likes of Robert DeNiro and Sofia Coppola getting in on the action.

• And hey, it’s now illegal to resell concert and sporting event tickets in Ontario at a profit. TICKETMASTER has begun delisting tickets running afoul of Premier Doug Ford’s new law, while STUBHUB and SEATGEEK say they intend to comply. Will base ticket prices now just get more expensive to compensate?

✈️ AIRLINES

• In saying the quiet part out loud, U.S.-based airline JETBLUE looks to have provoked a new lawsuit around its alleged use of surveillance pricing. The class action, filed in New York, comes right after an employee of the airline told a customer complaining about prices on X, formerly Twitter, to “try clearing your cache and cookies or booking with an incognito window.” The lawsuit says customers shouldn’t have their privacy rights violated in a “digital rat race for airline tickets,” and that costs should be the same for each similarly seated passenger. Surveillance pricing, meanwhile, is hot, hot hot, with Manitoba moving to ban the practice, new NDP leader Avi Lewis calling for the same and Doug Ford saying… nah, actually we’re good with it.

• Here in Canada, WESTJET is closely following a price increase on checked baggage by AIR CANADA with a hike of its own. As CBC notes, it’s the third increase to baggage fees in the past three years, which really proves that flying is the new cellphone or Netflix subscription. Or is it vice versa?

🛒 GROCERIES

• And while we’re on the topic of surveillance pricing, SOBEYS has expanded its deal with a tech company that will allow the grocery chain to install electronic shelf labels at more than 300 stores. The $51 million deal with Montreal-based JRTech Solutions, which distributes the electronic labels made by Sweden’s Pricer AB, will see deployment begin in May. As Supermarkets News notes, Walmart’s plan to equip all its U.S. stores with digital shelf labels has met with heavy resistance from workers unions, who object to the move both taking away jobs and opening the door to prices being based on individual customer data.

💾 BIG TECH

• Antitrust trials are great for embarrassing emails from big companies coming out – see the recent Live Nation “robbing them blind” case – a fact that AMAZON is again learning the hard way. Emails revealed this week in an ongoing monopoly case in California against the company suggest that Amazon colluded to raise the prices of pet treats, khaki pants, eyedrops and other products. As one exchange showed, Amazon raised prices on a set of dog treats and worked with its manufacturer to convince Chewy, a competing online pet product retailer, to follow suit. “The evidence uncovered today is clear as day: Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable,” said state attorney general Rob Bonta. Amazon, of course, disagrees.

• In case you missed, Alexander Martin – the Toronto indie game developer known as Droqen – joined the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week to give us a behind-the-scenes on his historic attempt to take on GOOGLE and APPLE at the Competition Tribunal:

🥊 COMPETITION

• The federal government is looking to appoint new lay members to the COMPETITION TRIBUNAL. Effectively Canada’s competition court, the tribunal is a panel currently made up of four judges and five lay members, though up to eight are allowed by law. As previously reported here, two existing members – Stephen Law, an economics professor at Mount Allison University, and Ted Horbulyk, an associate professor emeritus of economics at the University of Calgary – recently had their terms extended until 2030. Ramaz Samrout, a managing partner of Ottawa-based consulting firm REIM Strategies, is scheduled to see her term end on June 1. A spokesperson could not say how many new members the Tribunal is currently looking to add, but the part-time jobs require a post-graduate degree in economics, business, commerce or finance and offer a per-diem of $920 to $1,080.

🤝 LOBBYING

• Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the subscriber survey last week, it gave me some great insights on what you guys like and maybe don’t like so much. Our monthly Lobby Report got the least love in those responses, and that’s understandable – it had been a work in progress that I was feeling my way into. I’ve decided to yank it from the regular rotation from now but, because I’m conscious that it does have fans, I’ll likely reintroduce it as a special feature for paid subscribers, while also working on making it more useful as opposed to simply functional.

• In that vein, just a few notes on who lobbied who the most in March. Leading the charge was the UNIFOR trade union, which descended on Ottawa on Mar. 23 and 24 with a lobbying blitz that resulted in 82 total posted communications, most of which were with Members of Parliament but also Industry Minister Melanie Joly. ENBRIDGE was up next with 55 total communications for the month, with many involving the Finance and Natural Resources departments. The COUNCIL OF CANADIAN INNOVATORS, a tech advocacy group led by former BlackBerry boss Jim Ballsillie, rounded out the top three with 53 communications, with 13 of those involving Joly’s department.

🚨 COMING UP

Most musicians are afraid to speak out about the Live Nation monopoly for fear of repercussions, but not Rollie Pemberton. Better known as CADENCE WEAPON, the rapper and former Edmonton poet laureate takes aim at a more real reality that is less controlled by big corporations on his new album, Forager, and upcoming book, Ways of Listening. He joins us next week on the Do Not Pass Go podcast, which is now going to drop on Tuesdays rather than Mondays as per what you guys told us you preferred in the subscriber survey.

Last year, the Toronto-based independent game developer – known online as “Droqen” – jumped on a new law that lets regular citizens and civil society groups challenge monopolies.

His target was Google’s deal with Apple, where its search engine is the default on the iPhone maker’s devices in exchange for billions of dollars. This arrangement, Martin argued, is harmful to Canadian businesses and internet users because it forces them to use an opaque system that Google can – and does – change at any time.

The Competition Tribunal in January refused to let his complaint go ahead, citing doubt that Martin and his law firm, Berger Montague, could mount a compelling case.

But the effort was historic because it established the rules that other Canadian monopoly cases against Live Nation and Apple are now following.

Martin joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week to talk about the experience, how the new law is intended to allow regular people like him to fight monopolies, and how the judge in his case may not have got that memo. Link is in the first reply below.

I really want to hear from you as we head into Do Not Pass Go phase 2, “Operation: Let’s Grow This Thing,” so I’m prioritizing the short, short, like really short survey below over dealing with some of the massive news from the past few days. Fear not, we’ll deal with the Live Nation verdict and Cineplex being up for sale soon enough.

In the meantime, please take a few seconds to answer five quick questions. Your answers will help me determine where to go next:

Start Survey

And since we’re here, have a listen to the new one-minute podcast trailer, inserted above, which I’ve created for Spotify visibility purposes. Speaking of the podcast, we’re back this Monday with an exclusive interview with Alexander Martin – aka Droqen – the independent video game developer who sued Google for being a monopoly.

As Billy Red Lyons used to say, don’t you dare miss it!

Current Rogers executive and former Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains is considering a bid to become leader of the Ontario Liberal party, according to sources close to the situation.

His decision will likely depend on who the provincial Liberals choose to represent them in an upcoming by-election in the Scarborough Southwest riding, a decision that will happen on May 9.

The front-runner in that contest is Nate Erskine-Smith, the current federal Liberal Member of Parliament for Beaches–East York, who declared his desire to lead the provincial party in February. Erskine-Smith finished second to Bonnie Crombie in the leadership race in 2023.

Tyler Banham, a member of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s campaign team in Ontario, has been pegged as Bains’ campaign manager, according to one source.

“Nothing is ever 100 per cent, but it’s reasonably certain [that Bains will enter the race],” according to a source. “All eyes are on Scarborough Southwest because if Nate wins, [Bains’] entrance is less likely.”

However, Bains – who is currently chief corporate affairs officer at telecom giant Rogers – has “a lot of people behind him who don’t like Nate, they might push him regardless,” the source adds.

Neither Bains nor Banham immediately returned requests for comment.

Coming from an accounting background, Bains was first elected in 2004 as the Liberal MP for Mississauga–Brampton South. In 2015, he was named Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development by Trudeau, a post he held until 2021, when he left politics with the stated intent of spending more time with family.

After nearly two years as an executive at CIBC, Bains joined Rogers in 2023, a move that proved controversial.

As Innovation Minister, Bains in 2020 released a statement in which he shared big telcos’ fears that a CRTC ruling a year earlier would discourage them from further investing in networks. The ruling would have significantly lowered the wholesale rates that independent providers paid to the big telcos to use parts of their networks to deliver services.

While Bains did not formally intervene in the CRTC’s ongoing review of the rates, his statement was enough to convince the regulator to largely reverse its own ruling and keep wholesale fees high – a decision that led to many of Canada’s independent providers throwing in the towel and selling themselves to the big telcos, including Rogers.

His appointment to the company in 2023 amid the mega-merger with fellow cable giant Shaw, which was approved by his ISED successor François-Philippe Champagne, was criticized as “incredibly concerning.”

“This hiring raises questions, especially after the government green-lit the Rogers-Shaw merger, benefiting Rogers at the expense of Canadian consumers,” said NDP industry critic Brian Masse in a statement at the time. “Canadians have questions — they want to ensure Rogers now has no easy access to cabinet with this hiring.”

Another source close to the situation confirmed Bains’ potential bid, and that his ties to corporate company could prove to be an asset in terms of fundraising and Bay Street support.

“The Liberals need to break through in the Peel region, which hasn’t happened in the last three elections,” the source said. “The Conservatives didn’t have to spend there because they thought they had it on lock, and they were right.”

Rogers has also had close ties with the government of Toronto, most notably through former mayor John Tory. The Toronto Star in 2021 revealed that Tory was receiving an annual retainer of $100,000 for sitting on the Rogers Control Trust while he was mayor, while one of the family members herself – Martha Rogers – disputed his statements that he only worked with the company in his spare time.

Tory resigned as mayor in 2023 following the disclosure of an affair with a staffer. Rumours had circulated recently that he was considering running for the position again, though he said last month that he does not plan to.

A small, now defunct company in British Columbia is taking a French industrial gases giant to court for allegedly freezing it out of the dry ice business.

Fraser Valley Dry Ice, started in 2020 in Abbotsford, B.C., is asking Canada’s Competition Tribunal for leave to proceed with an abuse-of-dominance case against Paris-based Air Liquide, who it says engaged in a sustained pattern of conduct that progressively impaired its “ability to compete and ultimately resulted in its exclusion from the market.”

Fraser Valley says Air Liquide began implementing frequent and unreasonable price increases and supply constraints as of 2022, right after it informed the multinational of its plans to expand. Air Liquide maintains dominance in supply of liquid carbon dioxide – the main component for the dry ice that is used in refrigeration – and in downstream dry-ice sales through its own subsidiaries, according to the company.

“The supply of liquid carbon dioxide and industrial gases in Canada is highly concentrated, with a limited number of large suppliers operating at the upstream level,” the filing says. “Downstream distributors such as Fraser Valley Dry Ice are dependent on upstream suppliers like Air Liquide for access to essential inputs, with limited or no viable alternative sources of supply.”

Air Liquide continued to supply liquid carbon dioxide to fellow multinational firm Linde, which also operates downstream dry-ice sales, despite repeatedly claiming force majeure events that supposedly disrupted gas inventories.

The price increases and erratic supply got so bad that Fraser Valley Dry Ice was forced to wind down operations in January of this year, according to the filing. A prospective buyer expressed interest in acquiring the business and continuing operations, but the transaction did not proceed because the purchaser was not able to secure a reliable supply of liquid carbon dioxide from the French company.

“Air Liquide used its control over an essential upstream input – liquid carbon dioxide – while competing in the downstream market for dry ice, to impose pricing and supply conditions that increased the applicant’s costs and constrained its access to supply,” the filing says.

“These measures had the effect of materially compressing the margins available to Fraser Valley Dry Ice and impairing its ability to compete effectively in the downstream market… and had the effect of disciplining, limiting, and ultimately eliminating that competitor from the market.”

Air Liquide did not respond to a request for comment.

The Competition Bureau in 2018 found Canada’s industrial gases market to be highly concentrated, with three major companies dominating: Air Liquide, Ireland-based Linde and U.S.-based Praxis.

Linde entered into a consent agreement with the Bureau that year to sell its Canadian operations to Germany-based Messer following its merger with Praxis.

🛢️ RESOURCES

• The Competition Bureau is pressing its investigation into Calgary-based oil and gas firm KEYERA’s proposed acquisition of Houston-based gas company PLAINS ALL AMERICAN PIPELINE after acquiring a court order this week to gather information related to the deal. The Federal Court order requires Calgary-based INTER PIPELINE, another industry player, to produce records that the Bureau believes to be relevant to its probe into whether the acquisition will lead to a substantial lessening or prevention of competition in the Canadian oil and gas industry.

🥊 COMPETITION

• The COMPETITION BUREAU has also unveiled its planned priorities for 2026-2027 with a release titled “Advancing Competition to Improve Affordability and Choice.” The plan includes focusing on sectors that affect affordability the most, including food and housing, as well as continuing to crack down on deceptive marketing and hidden costs. The Bureau is also promising to focus on what it considers to be critical sectors: digital services, artificial intelligence, telecommunications, financial services, health and infrastructure.

• New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani is putting anyone who offers a subscription online on notice by resurrecting CLICK TO CANCEL rules. The rules – which essentially require anyone offering simple sign-ups for products and services online to make them just as easy to cancel – were originally introduced nationally in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission in 2024. But, an appeals court struck them down last summer just days before they were scheduled to take effect. Now, New York’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection is moving to strengthen the U.S. city’s consumer protection laws as part of a crackdown on “subscription tricks and traps.” Amazingly, click-to-cancel rules don’t appear to be anyone’s radar in Canada, despite such “tricks and traps” being just as widespread.

🏈 SPORTS & LEISURE

• The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE over how the league is handling its television and streaming rights. While some of the lawsuit may be driven by how sports leagues including the NFL are increasingly parcelling out televised games to a host of providers, ESPN reports that the Murdoch family, which owns the FOX CORPORATION, might be behind it. Fox’s television rights with the NFL run out after the 2029 season, and the network may be looking to put pressure on the league to renegotiate by involving the government.

• U.S. private equity firm GTCR has acquired Montreal-based LIVEBARN, which provides amateur and youth sports live streams, in a $400 million-plus (U.S.), The Globe and Mail reports. Livebarn has cameras at more than 4,000 playing surfaces in almost every U.S. state and Canadian province and territory. The deal, which was approved by Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller, is the latest in a wave of mergers and acquisitions in youth sports and sports technology, the Globe notes.

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT

• The entertainment industry mega-takeovers continue, with investment company PERSHING SQUARE this week tabling an offer estimated to be worth $64 billion (U.S.) for UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP. Pershing, which already owns a stake in the Netherlands-based record label as well as holdings in Google, Meta, Amazon and Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International, is looking to get in on the trend of growing music revenue, which is being driven by streaming services. Universal’s stable of artists include some of the biggest names in the world, including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Kendrick Lamar. The label itself has some Canadian connections, with it being briefly owned by the Bronfman family through their company Seagram’s in the late 1990s.

✈️ AIRLINES

• AIR CANADA is testing a new passenger complaints resolution system that employs a third-party mediator rather than the federal Canadian Transportation Agency. The airline is asking 500 randomly selected passengers who have complaints in with the CTA to try out the test, which is being run by a subsidiary of U.K.-based CDRL Group. The program would aim to resolve disputes within 90 days and alleviate the current CTA backlog of 95,000 complaints, many of which are stretching out to two or three years. Critics, however, warn that a system that involves a supposedly neutral mediator hired by an airline should be closely watched. As one such critic tells CBC: “We don’t want the fox in charge of the chicken coop here.”

🚨 COMING UP

Just a reminder that we’re catching a short breather next week, and the Do Not Pass Go podcast will be back with a thrilling new episode on Apr. 20. Now is a good time to hit that “subscribe” button… but you’ve already done that, right?

Our quick growth tells us there’s a big appetite for what we’re doing here, which is reporting on and elevating the profile of competition, affordability and consumer issues in Canada.

That’s great news, because we’re just getting started – there’s so much more to come.

Join us on this very special episode of the podcast for a look back at some of the highlights and stats from the past six months, plus a look forward at what’s next.

Plus, in between, we’re joined by Vass Bednar, director of the Canadian SHIELD Institute sovereignty think tank, and Arshy Mann, host of The Hatchet podcast and Substack, for a report card on how the “hawkish” Carney government is doing so far on competition issues.

Along with Denise Hearn, Vass is the co-author of the 2024 book The Big Fix, while Arshy in 2022/2023 produced Canadaland’s monopoly podcast series, both of which were the inspiration for Do Not Pass Go.

What better way to celebrate our milestones than a conversation with grandma and grandpa!

Check out the Canadian SHIELD Institute here and The Hatchet here.

Google has suffered more defeats on the way to its online monopoly trial in Canada, which begins in January, 2027.

The Competition Tribunal this week threw out nine motions made by the company in the case brought by the Competition Bureau, which is arguing that Google is harming the online marketplace by abusing its dominant positions in search and advertising. Google was trying to avoid having some of its top executives provide the same testimony used in a similar 2024 U.S. antitrust trial, and to disqualify some of the Bureau’s existing evidence.

In both instances, Justice Andrew Little mostly dismissed Google’s arguments, handing the Bureau several small wins and $10,000 in legal costs.

Lawyers for the Bureau had requested that 12 Google employees, some of whom are top executives, review around 600 pages of transcripts from the U.S. District Court proceeding, in which the company was ultimately found to be a search and online advertising monopoly.

Google countered by saying that such a request was “voluminous and overly burdensome.” The Bureau said the company’s response and motion was disingenuous and “nothing more than a baseless tactical move.”

Little agreed, for the most part, and ordered Google to confirm whether the testimony given in the U.S. case by three executives – Nirmal Jayaram and Nitish Korula, both senior engineering directors, and YouTube chief executive Neal Mohan – remains true and accurate now, or whether and how it has changed.

Little also dismissed a number of Google’s motions related to the Bureau’s previous three-year investigation, which concluded in 2016 without finding sufficient evidence that the company had engaged in anti-competitive conduct in online search and advertising.

Google was looking to question Bureau staff how that previous investigation had affected the decision to launch a new case against the company. But Little ruled that “Google’s questions are not proper… and need not be answered.”

This week’s defeats follow a more significant loss by Google last month, in which Little also dismissed an attempt by the company to qualify the case against it as criminal rather than civil, which would have granted it protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

🥊 COMPETITION

• Speaking of the COMPETITION TRIBUNAL, the federal government has quietly reappointed two of the lay members who make up the court’s panel. Stephen Law, an economics professor at Mount Allison University, and Ted Horbulyk, an associate professor emeritus of economics at the University of Calgary, were set to have their terms expire on Apr. 15, but both have been extended until Apr. 14, 2030. Two other lay members – Wiktor Askanas, a business professor at the University of New Brunswick, and Binah Nathan, a corporate director – are also due for term expiration this month, though neither appear to have been extended as of this writing. The department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development is responsible for Tribunal hiring. Due to the Easter holiday, we weren’t able to find out if any other candidates were considered or what’s happening with the other terms.

• And speaking of hiring, Jeanne Pratt has been upgraded from “acting” to “interim” COMPETITION COMMISSIONER. Pratt took over from long-time commissioner Matthew Boswell, who left the job early in November before his term was set to expire in February. Boswell has since landed as a partner at legal firm Norton Rose Fulbright. ISED is currently taking applications for the full-time commissioner role, until Apr. 8. Pundits suggest that the government’s real position on competition – whether it truly will be as “hawkish” as promised – will largely be revealed by who it chooses for the job.

💾 BIG TECH

• The Competition Bureau may have scored some small wins against Google this week, but it also took it on the chin in its separate fake review case against AMAZON. The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld a decision that prevents the Bureau from accessing company data related to health, personal care, home and electronic products sold by the e-tailing giant. The company argued that providing such info would be excessively burdensome, as the request covered a broad array of items. The judge agreed that the Bureau had failed to justify the wide scope of its request. The Bureau says it is assessing its next steps and that its case is ongoing.

• In case you missed it, Spencer Callaghan from the CANADIAN INTERNET REGISTRATION AUTHORITY is the guest on the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week. He warns of the dangers of entrepreneurs and businesses relying too heavily on online platforms and their ever-changing whims, and shares advice for what they should do instead. Spoiler: build your own online presence. It’s required listening for anyone doing business online:

✈️ AIRLINES

• Canada’s airlines had a hellish week, starting with AIR CANADA announcing the retirement of its embattled chief executive, Michael Rousseau. The news came on Monday, a week after Rousseau posted a video in which he expressed condolences to the families of the two pilots who died in the recent crash at LaGuardia Airport in New York. The video, which was in English only, sparked a fresh firestorm over Rousseau’s continued inability to speak French, a cardinal sin for the head of the Montreal-based airline.

• But wait, there’s more! AIR CANADA also got dinged with a $426,000 fine for multiple violations of Air Passenger Protection Rights (APPR) regulations related to cancellations from its flight-attendant strike last summer. The Canadian Transportation Agency this week said the airline had improperly handled re-booking and reimbursing passengers who were affected by the labour dispute in August. Industry critics say the fine is insignificant, but Air Canada plans to appeal it anyway.

• We’re not done with AIR CANADA yet. In case you missed it, we had the scoop here at Do Not Pass Go on how the airline used “scare tactics” last summer to get the feds to proactively intervene in that flight-attendant strike. As revealed in documents obtained through a freedom of information request, Air Canada told Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu that the disruption would be worse than those that followed the 9/11 and Covid-19 shutdowns. Hajdu did in fact intervene by ordering attendants back to work just hours after the strike was called. It’s a bit inside baseball, but it’s worth adding here that the minister’s department took two days to respond to three questions we put forward – why she invoked the code so fast, which of Air Canada’s arguments persuaded her to do so, and how much weight she gave to the 9/11 and Covid-19 warnings. The response we eventually got largely ignored the first question and completely ignored the other two. A spokesperson said “our response stands” after we reiterated the questions.

• CTV News also this week reported that the federal government, under at least two successive transport ministers, had intervened to limit the compensation that airlines have to pay passengers. Following updates to the APPR in 2023, then-transport minister Anita Anand told the Canadian Transport Agency that she was “disappointed” that the regulator was trying to add mechanical issues and labour disruptions to the list of grounds for which passengers could claim compensation. Her position is linked to heavy lobbying by the airlines, including AIR CANADA and WESTJET, and follows revelations in January by CBC that the feds also worked to undermine efforts to have the companies pay for the passenger complaints system.

• And then there’s this whopper: WESTJET has been nailed for lying about supposed maintenance issues with planes and denying passenger compensation for resultant cancelled flights. As one passenger who took the airline to small claims court tells CBC, WestJet cancelled his Edmonton-to-Fort-McMurray trip on the grounds that there were mechanical problems with the plane, only for that passenger to then discover that same aircraft flying later the same day through a publicly available flight tracker. It turns out that the airline had reassigned the plane in question to a more profitable route that did indeed have a mechanical issue, turning the situation into a “business decision.” As CBC notes, this sort of gamesmanship may be widespread.

📱 TELECOM

• Several of Canada’s larger cable companies are putting the screws to smaller wholesale-based competitors again by decommissioning copper networks, thereby stranding those providers’ internet customers or forcing them into much costlier services. Montreal-based COGECO has ignored a request by CRTC staff to maintain copper-based wholesale connections for Ontario-based TEKSAVVY, and will cut the service off on Apr. 14. A similar situation is happening in the Maritimes, where EASTLINK is decommissioning copper wholesale services used by FIBERNETICS. Both of the larger cable companies say that affected customers can be migrated to available wholesale fibre services in their respective areas, but the smaller companies are quick to point out that the access costs on those newer networks are still astronomically high – which inevitably means higher prices for customers. “TekSavvy is very concerned not only about how Cogeco’s decommissioning activities affect our customers, our business, and competition as a whole,” says Andy Kaplan-Myrth, the company’s vice-president of regulatory and carrier affairs, “but also about the CRTC’s ability to regulate incumbents that increasingly behave like they are too big or powerful to regulate.”

• Fans of competition-policy-as-entertainment have reason to be excited, with the acclaimed Rogers v Rogers one-man play returning to Crow’s Theatre in Toronto this fall. The show, which sold out during its initial run last year and which just completed a stint at Winnipeg’s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, returns to Crow’s on Nov. 8 and goes till Dec. 13. It is, of course, based on the book of the same name by Globe and Mail reporter Alexandra Posadzki and focuses on the ROGERS family succession saga that unfolded a few years ago at the same time as the company was trying to complete a mega-merger with SHAW. If you missed it, check out our podcast interview with playwright Michael Healey and our review. Spoiler: it’s amazing, go see it.

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT

• While we’re on the topic of entertainment-as-competition-policy, there’s a fascinating narrative – some would say possible conspiracy theory – germinating about how corporate consolidation in radio and television has purposely worked to breed a more compliant culture. It started with SMASHING PUMPKINS front-man Billy Corgan recently suggesting on his podcast that rock music was purposely pushed out of the cultural spotlight in the late 1990s by MTV and the rest of the music industry in favour of rap and then pop, despite still being immensely popular, as a way of promoting artists who were more easily controlled by corporate labels and radio station owners. Charlie Benante, drummer for heavy metal band ANTHRAX, seconded that motion this week in an interview where he noted that consolidation in the radio industry – particularly by CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, now known as IHEARTRADIO – also served to push out heavier music in favour of corporate-controlled pop. “There was a coup,” he said. It gets even juicier – or wackier, take your pick – with Corgan’s suggestion that the CIA may have been involved. In the context of the ongoing antitrust case(s) going on against LIVE NATION, it’ll be fascinating to see if this narrative gathers any steam or if it just turns out to be sour grapes from a handful of aging rock stars.

🚨 COMING UP

Do Not Pass Go is six months old and we just hit 1,000 subscribers! This Monday on the podcast, we take a quick peek back at a few of the highlights and look forward at what’s to come. In between, we host Canadian SHIELD Institute director VASS BEDNAR and The Hatchet’s ARSHY MANN to dissect the Carney government’s “hawkish” performance on competition issues so far.

Air Canada urged the federal government to prevent a strike by flight attendants last summer by telling officials that the impact of service disruptions could be worse than that following the 9/11 attacks or the Covid-19 outbreak, according to documents obtained by Do Not Pass Go through a freedom of information request.

In an eight-page letter to Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu dated Aug. 12, four days ahead of the strike that eventually went ahead on Aug. 16, executives warned that the expected shutdown of operations would have “significant economic consequences” for the airline and the country alike.

Air Canada was about to pull the trigger on grounding 249 aircraft across its network, which would affect 130,000 daily passengers covering 50 domestic and 115 international destinations, as well as cargo supply chains and “Canada’s reputation.” The airline also warned that full operational recovery could take seven to 10 days following the end of a strike action.

“The logistics involved and time necessary to affect the above may at first be difficult to appreciate,” wrote Marc Barbeau, chief legal officer and corporate secretary, and Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, chief human resources officer.

“Even the unplanned shutdown of airspace after 9/11 [in 2001] is not comparable. In that extreme case, passengers and crew largely remained in the same location for the duration of the grounding. Similarly, the significant scale down and ramp-up related to the pandemic [in 2020] is not comparable, notably as the return to pre-pandemic operations occurred over many months.”

The airline urged Hajdu to take the unusual step of invoking Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which allows the minister to intervene in employment disputes to “maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of the industrial disputes or differences,” before an actual strike began.

“Delaying intervention until a work stoppage occurs seems to be more about encouraging the parties to present their best positions, rather than permitting them to use their strike or lockout rights, which, as experience shows, then only lasts for a limited period,” the letter says.

“If the intended purpose is to push parties to the brink, then that moment in our case is when our orderly shutdown must be activated… rather than 72 hours later when a work stoppage has formally begun. Once the costs of a shutdown begin to be absorbed there is less impetus to advance what might have been advanced earlier. In other words, the most generous employer offer is likely to be the one that avoids the costs of a shutdown. There is at present no useful purpose in refraining from acting now.” (Bolding from original letter, read it here:)

Air Canada Letter to Minister Patty Hajdu

2.49MB ∙ PDF file

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Air Canada requests federal government intervention in a potential strike by flight attendants in August, 2025.

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Hajdu did not invoke Section 107 prior to the strike, but did so just hours after it began. The Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered the airline’s 10,400 flight attendants back to work shortly after.

The attendants, who were seeking a number of concessions from Air Canada including pay for the time they spent on the ground, reacted angrily – they refused to comply and called the order a “betrayal” by the Liberal government. The strike ultimately ended three days later, on Aug. 19, after the airline caved on key points, including some limited pay for groundwork.

Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick says a negotiated settlement with the union was always the airline’s preferred outcome, but it was forced to explore back-up plans – including requesting the use of Section 107 – to ensure continuity of operations.

“Failing a negotiated settlement, we viewed the government’s immediate intervention as necessary because of the nature of the airline business,” he says. “Unlike other businesses that can be shut down and reopened simply by opening the door, the airline business is very complex and shutting down and restarting is not easy.”

He added that the expected shutdown would have left aircraft parked all over the world, which would have put them out of position when the time came for a restart.

“This is the context in which we discuss other major events, such as 9/11, that brought the industry to a complete halt… even those events are not comparable for us because the restart was more complex than what we experienced for reasons explained in the letter. The intent was also to convey the extent of the knock-on effects of a work stoppage, particularly during the summer peak when millions of Canadians were relying on us for their holiday plans.”

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents Air Canada’s flight attendants, says comparisons of a potential strike-related shutdown to those caused by security- and health-related disasters are disingenuous.

“It was a total scare tactic because they were in full control,” says Wesley Lesosky, president of CUPE’s Air Canada component. “9/11, respectfully, they weren’t in full control of, the same with Covid. This was a strike, and to avert a strike you have to either put in more money or be prepared to lose money. I don’t necessarily buy their argument, only because they were in control of their destiny.”

Gabor Lukacs, head of the Air Passenger Rights advocacy group, says the letter is also more troubling evidence of Ottawa’s cozy relationship with the nation’s airlines.

“Air Canada is telling a minister what to do and the minister is obediently complying, like a lackey,” he says. “Having to shut down the network is another myth – the airline can and should operate their flights while the employees are still available. Had Canada had EU-style passenger protection, Air Canada would not have dared to play this kind of game with its employees and the public.”

Separately, the Canadian Transportation Agency this week fined Air Canada $426,000 for 71 violations of the Air Passenger Protection Regulations during the strike, for failing to refund tickets or provide customers with alternative flights on other carriers. The Montreal-based airline, which in February reported full-year revenue for 2025 of $22.4 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3.1 billion, says it plans to appeal the fine.

Employment and Social Development Canada did not provide a response to queries by the requested deadline of Tuesday afternoon in regards to why Hajdu invoked Section 107 so quickly, or which – if any – of the statements made by Air Canada in its letter affected her decision.

Following the strike, the minister ordered a probe into allegations that flight attendants were being expected to do unpaid work. The government in February published findings from the first phase of its investigation, which was that more data is needed.

Hajdu reported that, while the government heard stories from union members about not being fully compensated for delayed flights, their anecdotes couldn’t be verified by pay records. “That’s not to say it isn’t true,” she told the Canadian Press. “That’s just to say that the records aren’t matching.”

Lesosky says CUPE is not happy with the current, second phase of the investigation because it is centring around the airlines self-auditing their own pay records.

“I have zero satisfaction with it because we’re not part of it.”

Stories of businesses losing access to their social media accounts are increasingly popping up. Entire industries have pivoted because of changes to algorithms, only for platform owners to switch them up again on a whim. Some have ceased to exist entirely while others have changed hands and ushered in completely new sets of rules.

On top of it all, most of the platforms in question are U.S.-based – a big problem when Canada is pushing toward more sovereignty.

In other words, it’s never been a worse time to hitch your online wagon to someone else’s train.

Spencer Callaghan is the brand and communications director for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the non-profit organization that sells the dot-ca domain name. He’s self-admittedly biased because of who he works for, but he’s not wrong in advocating for businesses of all sizes to control their own online fate.

He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to warn of the dangers of businesses putting too much effort into opaquely run platforms, and to share his advice on how they can own rather than rent their respective online presences.

It was a bad week for Air Canada, starting with the horrendous news of the crash at New York’s Laguardia Airport that killed two pilots and injured many passengers on board one of the airline’s flights from Montreal.

While the investigation into causes is still ongoing, early accounts suggest that traffic controllers at the airport had trouble tracking the fire truck that collided with the plane, with fingers also being pointed at the deficiency of staff in general.

The situation took an unexpected turn on Monday after Air Canada chief executive Michael Rousseau released a video expressing his condolences to the pilots’ families. The video was in English only, which kicked off a fresh furor over the Montreal-based airline CEO’s inability to speak French.

Rousseau has repeatedly drawn fire for his lack of bilingualism while heading Canada’s national carrier. In 2021, he sparked criticism for saying that he had lived in Montreal for 14 years without having to learn French, after which he promised to take lessons. He has repeatedly been called by the federal Transport Committee to answer for the issue.

Quebec’s Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said this week’s video proves the airline CEO is a “repeat offender.” He was joined by provincial politicians from various parties in his call for Rousseau’s resignation. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney chimed in, saying that he was “very disappointed” with Rousseau’s mono-lingual apology and that it “lacked compassion.”

Rousseau responded with a statement in which he apologized for his gaffe diverting attention away from the crash itself and the grief of those involved.

The language issue is of key concern to culture hawks, but critics are finding themselves agreeing with Rousseau in a roundabout way – that it’s a distraction from the crash, but also the government’s ongoing refusal to address the airline competition problem.

“This is identity- and token-politics, a good way to divert attention from the airlines shortchanging passengers and sabotaging the [Air Passenger Protection Regulations],” air rights advocate Gabor Lukacs tells Do Not Pass Go, referring to recent revelations regarding the Carney government’s efforts to help airlines avoid paying for a complaints system.

Rather than focusing on language issues, he says, the government should be directing its energy to resolving the growing backlog of passenger complaints – which is at least 88,000 deep, with many taking years to resolve.

Those complaints are multiplying rapidly, with new issues continually arising – such as the revelation this week that Flair Airlines’ luggage measurement bins at airports were actually smaller than those listed online.

“It is ridiculous that the PM would comment on this. Yes, historically, Air Canada is bound by the Official Languages Act. Yes, it would have been nice if the CEO had expressed condolences in French as a matter of courtesy and compassion,” Lukacs says. “But there was no legal obligation for him to do so and convening a committee meeting over this is a theatre. The MPs should spend their time on investigating how airlines disobey the law rather than this kind of symbolic stuff.”

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT & LEISURE

• On a happier note, baseball season is here, woohoo! Things might be a little different this year as far as Blue Jays tickets go if Doug Ford follows through on his promise to ban scalping. The Ontario Premier, who scoffed at Jays’ sky-high playoff prices last fall, recently made headlines for saying that he plans to introduce laws that would make it illegal to re-sell event tickets through the likes of TICKETMASTER and STUBHUB for more than face value. The ROGERS’ owned Blue Jays have taken notice, sending out a survey to season ticket holders asking them how they feel about the proposed ban and whether it will affect their plans to renew. The survey tells recipients that Ford’s move would “limit their ability to offset the cost of an 81-game package by reselling games they cannot attend for more than original purchase price,” before asking “how important is the ability to resell some games above face value to the overall value of your season ticket membership?” Is this a step toward Rogers and the Blue Jays opposing the proposed ban?

  

• Speaking of ROGERS and sports, The Globe and Mail has a great scoop on company scion and executive chairman Edward Rogers trying to get out of paying his MAPLE LEAF SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT partner Larry Tanenbaum for fees related to his late mother’s estate. Rogers is objecting to the $11 million in total compensation that Tanenbaum and two other executors are claiming for dealing with Loretta Anne Rogers’ estate, saying that his MLSE partner appears to have “delegated” his duties to his co-trustees. Tanenbaum’s company Kilmer Sports holds the remaining 25 per cent of MLSE, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors, Argos and TFC, among others, that Rogers does not control. As The Globe points out, the two men have often clashed, with this legal battle being the latest episode. Rogers is also angling to acquire Tananbaum’s remaining stake in MLSE.

• The skiing and snowboarding season may be winding down, but the suing of resort operators is just getting underway. A new class action suit was filed in the U.S. this week against VAIL RESORTS and ALTERRA MOUNTAIN, both based in Colorado, for allegedly inflating lift-ticket prices through “anti-competitive bundling practices tied to their multi-mountain season passes.” The passes in question are Vail’s Epic and Alterra’s Ikon, which give users access to the companies’ respective resorts around the world and run from a few hundred dollars to nearly $2,000 depending on the number of days selected. The lawsuit alleges that resorts are jacking up the price of single-day tickets as a way to “coerce customers into buying their multi-mountain season pass offerings which [skiers] then view as more cost effective.” Vail owns more than 40 resorts in the United States, Australia, Switzerland and Canada, including Whistler Blackcomb. Alterra owns 18 properties in North America, including Blue Mountain in Ontario and Mont Tremblant in Quebec. Paul Pinchbeck, president of the Canadian Ski Council industry advocacy group, says the skiing and snowboarding market in Canada isn’t as concentrated as it is in the U.S., with Vail and Alterra owning only three of the 240 active ski areas here. Many Canadian resorts offer their own passes and work in collaboration with Vail and Alterra even if they aren’t officially under their respective ownership. “Connections to the mega passes allow partner ski areas to expand their market reach in a cost-effective manner with the goal of growing business in the destination ski market,” he tells Do Not Pass Go. “Canada’s ski areas continue to recognize that affordability is high on customer desires and will continue to create and offer new access products and options that are cheaper than the walk-up window pricing on a peak day.” Coincidentally, left-leaning news site Jacobin has a new feature on the “Big Ski” duopoly of Vail and Alterra, and how it’s leading to the decline of the sport. “Costs have gotten so bad that it seems like hardly anyone can afford to ski these days,” it says.

• Not only does spring mean the end of skiing and the advent of baseball, it also brings the beginning of roller coaster season. As if to remind everyone of that, the Competition Bureau this week filed an amended application of its junk fee case against Canada’s Wonderland, the largest amusement park in Ontario. The Bureau is accusing the park’s owner, North Carolina-based SIX FLAGS, of advertising “unattainable” prices, since additional junk fees – such as a processing charge of up to $9.99 – are stacked on top of ticket purchases. The filing cites several “aggravating factors,” such as Wonderland being the only amusement park in Canada that continues to charge junk fees, Six Flags doing so despite the Bureau’s previously successful enforcement actions against rental car companies and most recently Cineplex for the same, not to mention related settlements with satellite and streaming radio providers. You can almost hear the exasperation coming through in the application: “Despite the information available, Wonderland engaged in and continues to engage in the conduct at issue.”

• It’s not your imagination – streaming prices are rising, according to a new report by Canada’s Convergence Research. The 10 leading providers, which in Canada include NETFLIX, DISNEY+, AMAZON PRIME VIDEO and CRAVE, hiked prices by an average of 7 per cent last year, which follows an 8-per-cent increase in 2024. Those price increases are pushing consumers toward cheaper ad-supported packages, Convergence says, which is almost certainly the streaming companies’ strategy. Right on time, Netflix has announced another slew of prices hikes, though MobileSyrup reports that these aren’t necessarily applying to Canada.

• In case you missed it, we broke the news here this week that the Competition Bureau is reviewing the $110-billion mega-merger between PARAMOUNT and WARNER BROS. With both companies having significant film and television production and streaming presences in Canada, the review might be expected, but questions abound over what the competition enforcement agency can do about it:

🛒 GROCERIES & RETAIL

• City Councillors in TORONTO have voted overwhelmingly in favour of going ahead with a municipally owned grocery store pilot project, with a vision and strategy plan to be presented in the second quarter of 2027. The review will also consider what policy levers the city has to “prevent price gouging by grocery and other retailers, including ensuring retailers licensed by the City are transparent about rates and prices and disclose the use of consumers’ personal data and algorithmic pricing.”

• A shout-out to The Peak this week for highlighting the rebound going on with independent bookstores in Canada, many of which have united under the booksellers.ca banner as an alternative to both AMAZON and INDIGO. The newsletter points out that the website, run by Les Librairies indépendantes du Québec, has expanded to eight more provinces to go with its English version launch. Indie stores are having something of a resurgence, with approximately 300 across Canada as of 2024. The website will allow these indie stores to ship books for cheaper and to offer a wider selection, according to The Peak.

💾 BIG TECH

• A Los Angeles jury handed down a landmark ruling this week in finding GOOGLE’s YouTube and Facebook owner META guilty of cultivating social media addiction in kids. The court awarded a 20-year-old woman known as Kaley $6 million (U.S.) for mental health damages brought on by her addiction to the social media platforms. Mental health advocates are hailing the verdict as a huge win as it sets a precedent for hundreds of other similar cases currently winding through U.S. courts. Canada is seeing such cases as well, with a B.C. woman last month launching a similar lawsuit against Meta. The tech giants disagree with the findings in the U.S. and say they plan to appeal.

• Mark Zuckerberg’s META is having a helluva bad week, with a New Mexico court also ordering the social media company to pay $375 million (U.S.) for misleading users over the safety of its platforms for children. A jury there found that the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, endangered kids by exposing them to sexually explicit material and contact with sexual predators. The company intends to appeal.

• GOOGLE had some slightly better results, with a U.S. court this week throwing out an antitrust case brought by two publishers who alleged that the company has monopolized the online news market with its search business. Amit Mehta is the same judge who in 2024 ruled that Google was indeed a monopoly in search and online advertising. In this case, he found that the two publishers – Helena World Chronicle and Emmerich Newspapers – did not sufficiently prove that they had been harmed by the company’s actions in the search market.

🥊 COMPETITION

• In case you missed it, recently retired Federal Court Chief Justice and Competition Tribunal head PAUL CRAMPTON joined the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week to discuss how recent law changes might affect future merger and abuse-of-dominance challenges in Canada:

🚨 COMING UP

Whether you’re an influencer, small business or large enterprise, it’s never a good idea to hitch your wagon too tightly to someone else’s train. Spencer Callaghan, director of brand communications for the CANADIAN INTERNET REGISTRATION AUTHORITY, joins the podcast on Monday to discuss the dangers of putting too much effort into platforms that can pull the rug out at any time and the importance of owning your online presence.

Paramount’s $110-billion (U.S.) proposed takeover of Warner Bros.-Discovery has hit another potential obstacle, this time in Canada, with the Competition Bureau launching a review of the deal for its potential effects on film and television production and streaming markets here.

The Bureau confirms it opened the investigation on Mar. 12. The enforcement agency is mandated to review mergers when the value of involved Canadian assets or sales exceed $93 million (Canadian), or when the combined assets or revenues of the parties from or into Canada exceed $400 million. It can also voluntarily review deals that don’t meet those criteria.

A Bureau spokesperson would not comment on which of those two situations apply, though industry observers familiar with the deal say the proposed acquisition likely surpasses the required thresholds.

“When you consider all the assets Paramount is acquiring – HBO, Warner Bros., Discovery cable and content licenses, WB theatrical distribution, WB Games, DC Comics distribution, physical offices and staff – it wouldn’t be surprising if it meets the threshold,” says one.

“The larger question is whether [the Bureau believes] it will lessen competition and require divestiture of any assets.” (Story continues below)

Los Angeles-based Paramount Skydance announced the acquisition on Feb. 27 after a protracted battle with Netflix for New York-based Warner Bros.-Discovery. The streaming giant bowed out the day before, saying that the price had gone too high.

On the one hand, the deal isn’t expected to draw much resistance from federal U.S. antitrust officials, given Paramount founder David Ellison’s ties to President Donald Trump, but state-level is a different story.

Antitrust officials in California and New York in particular have already announced they are investigating the merger’s effects on their respective entertainment industry workforces.

Both Paramount and Warner Bros. have significant operations in Canada. Paramount’s recent film and TV productions here include Paw Patrol: The Movie and the upcoming Len & Cub streaming series, while Warner Bros. has produced The Last of Us and many of its DC Comics television and film properties, including Arrow and Suicide Squad, in Canada. Warner Bros. also maintains a games studio in Montreal.

Both companies also license their films to Canadian movie theatres and are major players in streaming. HBO content makes up the core of Bell Media’s Crave, which is a “significant streaming player in Canada,” according to Convergence Research president Brahm Eiley. “Paramount+ is as well, but less so.”

Ellison has said he intends to merge Paramount+ and HBO Max, Warner Bros.’ main streaming service, so that it can better compete globally against Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. In response, Bell Media has said it has a long-term deal with Warner Bros. that will keep HBO content on Crave “for the foreseeable future,” though the company has not specified the exact time frame.

Paramount declined to comment on the Canadian review.

Competition advocates say the Bureau is warranted in investigating and demanding concessions or conditions if necessary.

“We’re talking about both production and consumption here,” says Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project. “On the production side you’re removing a buyer while on the streaming side prices are already rising and consolidation isn’t a recipe to slow that down.”

The merger is also subject to possible scrutiny from Canadian Heritage Minister Marc Miller, who could implement a Cultural Sector Investment Review. Such reviews typically look into whether investments into cultural businesses by foreign entities are of net benefit to Canada. Heritage did not return a request for comment.

Despite that, at least a few competition lawyers in Toronto are doubtful that Canadian authorities will take much action on the merger.

“The Bureau would be interested in at least kicking the tires on this just to satisfy themselves,” says one. “They want to be seen at least giving it some consideration.”

“I just don’t know where they would go with it,” says another. “It seems to be one of those exercises on American mergers that Canada gets perfunctorily involved in.”

But that’s exactly what lawmakers did back in the 1980s, when they borrowed from the Scandinavian country’s Market Court to create the Competition Tribunal – Canada’s court of first resort when it comes to assessing mergers and abuse of dominance cases.

As the name implies, it’s not precisely a court. The Tribunal is indeed made of up judges, but they are often joined by lay members that jointly hear cases as a panel. As per the Swedish approach, the idea has always been to couple real-world economic and market knowledge with legal expertise.

Prior to retiring this past October, Paul Crampton served on the federal court for 16 years, with 14 of those as its Chief Justice. His duties included heading the Competition Tribunal, where he presided over some of the biggest and most contentious cases in Canadian history – including perhaps the biggest and most contentious, the Rogers-Shaw merger in 2023.

He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week to discuss how recent, badly needed updates to Canada’s competition laws are likely to affect future Tribunal cases – and, of course, we talk about that Rogers-Shaw case.

Algorithmic pricing took centre stage this week as Manitoba introduced legislation to ban it, closely followed by a national poll that found most Canadians want it made illegal or strictly regulated.

The province’s government signalled back in December that it would take action against algorithmic pricing – also known as surveillance or predatory pricing, which involves charging customers differently for products and services based on what sellers know about them.

Manitoba’s Bill 49, the Business Practices Amendment Act, was publicly introduced on Tuesday and, if passed, would label the use of “personalized algorithmic pricing” online and in stores as an unfair business practice.

A person found guilty of using a customer’s purchase history, socio-economic status or income data, medical history or geographic location to set prices could face a fine of up to $100,000 or 12 months in jail, while a corporate entity could be fined up to $300,000 for a first offence.

Most Canadians support such a ban, according to a poll released Wednesday by Abacus Data, with 52 per cent of respondents saying algorithmic pricing should be outlawed while 31 per cent said it should be allowed but more strictly regulated.

Algorithmic pricing has long been the norm online, used by the likes of airlines and hotels to set prices based on customer data and fluctuating demand. But its implementation has been spreading like wildfire to everything including concert tickets, rents and groceries. Just this past week, for example, news emerged that the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post was getting in on the action by charging subscribers based on their personal data.

Manitoba’s government has taken criticism over the lack of evidence that this sort of pricing was happening in the province, but Premier Wab Kinew this week countered by pointing out that its existence elsewhere was proof enough that it was coming.

“We know that with the increasing cost of groceries and cost of living for Manitobans, that they’re feeling the pinch,” he told reporters. “And we want to make sure that we’re working to get ahead of this issue to ensure that Manitobans aren’t subjected to those same types of risks.”

Pro-competition advocates cheered Manitoba’s ban, but it may just be the veritable band-aid on the real problem – as suggested by Jim Balsillie in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed and here on the Do Not Pass Go podcast last month.

As the former BlackBerry co-chief executive points out, Canada’s lax privacy laws are enabling companies and organizations to harvest vast amounts of consumer data – the actual fuel that enables algorithmic and surveillance pricing. “It’s a new form of authoritarianism,” he said on the podcast.

Balsillie had challenged the federal government to enact stronger privacy protections, but Parliament so far appears to be going in the opposite direction. The Carney government last week rejected amendments proposed by the Senate to Bill C-4 – the “Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act” – that would have added privacy restrictions and limits on how political parties can use voters’ information.

While Bill C-4 largely focuses on implementing tax measures that are indeed related to affordability, its fourth section has been criticized for clauses that exempt political parties from provincial privacy laws. Green Party leader Elizabeth May this week said her fellow Members of Parliament should be “ashamed” for rejecting the Senate’s suggestions to limit those exemptions.

Balsillie applauded Manitoba’s move on pricing in an email to Do Not Pass Go, but reiterated that privacy laws must go hand in hand with affordability measures.

“To properly address these issues, it’s strong privacy and regulations, not or. So, I expect Manitoba to follow this initiative with appropriate privacy legislation,” he says. “As for C-4 Part 4, how can we trust federal political parties to properly govern the digital sphere when they fight so hard to keep it lawless for themselves?” 

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT

• Speaking of provincial governments trying to tame out-of-control pricing schemes, Ontario looks to be joining the growing number of jurisdictions that are banning ticket scalping. Premier Doug Ford posted as much on X/Twitter on Friday:

  The Toronto Star story he points to outlines how the province plans to outlaw selling tickets for more than face value. Ford of course scrapped the previous Liberal government’s legislation in 2019 that would have capped resale prices, calling the measures “unenforceable.” The change of heart may be driven by the realization that scalpers are now using bot armies to instantly buy up all event tickets as soon as they go on sale on TICKETMASTER, then re-listing them seconds later at vastly inflated prices. The United Kingdom, Australia, Quebec and others have realized this and have enacted similar bans.

• On the topic of Ticketmaster, the U.S. antitrust trial of its parent LIVE NATION continued this week despite federal prosecutors announcing a settlement with the company last week that surprised everyone – including the judge and the government’s own prosecutor. With 30 states forging ahead with the case, Live Nation chief executive and Thunder Bay, Ont. native Michael Rapino took the stand on Thursday to defend against charges that his company has monopolized the live events business. Rapino deplored as “disgusting” some emails released last week in which his top ticketing executives bragged about “robbing fans blind.” Prosecuting attorneys, however, pointed out that those same executives are still employed and don’t appear to have been disciplined. “We don’t fire easily,” Rapino countered. Separately but related, the question everyone is wondering about last week’s politicized settlement is: What does Kid Rock think about all this? Mr. Rock, who has been perhaps the most outspoken critic of Live Nation’s monopoly but simultaneously a big Donald Trump stan, isn’t mincing words. “This is a joke,” he told Fox & Friends.

• Over in the streaming world, AMAZON is raising the cost of its ad-free Prime Video tier by $2 (U.S.) to $4.99 a month in the United States, though it’s unclear if this affects Canadian subscribers. That fee is on top of the Prime program cost, which is $139 a year in the U.S. or $99 (Canadian). Meanwhile, at least one market analyst believes NETFLIX is free to raise prices now that it no longer has regulatory scrutiny to worry about after backing out of trying to acquire WARNER BROS.

• And speaking of WARNER BROS., the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division says PARAMOUNT’s planned acquisition of the movie studio will “absolutely not” have a fast track to approval because of political ties. Paramount is, of course, owned by President Donald Trump buddy Larry Ellison. “The idea that somehow enforcement has been politicized is ludicrous,” Omeed Assefi, the DOJ’s acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, tells Reuters. No word on whether he winked or was crossing his fingers behind his back while saying that.

📱 TELECOM

• The latest CBC Marketplace takes aim at Canadians’ mounting frustrations with getting service – any service – from the nation’s big telecom providers. The program and associated article delve into the Kafka-esque nightmare that is dealing with the likes of BELL, ROGERS and TELUS over price increases, contract issues and other problems. Highlighting the skyrocketing number of complaints being placed with the national ombudsman, CBC talks to customers who lament interminable wait times, dropped calls and incorrect information when they are lucky enough to get through. As one customer says, “It’s impossible to get a single right answer that is consistent through each support agent.” The piece notes that Spain is introducing legislation that would cap service call wait times at three minutes, while Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly – who oversees telecom policies and who recently proclaimed that the government was “hawkish” on competition – sidesteps questions about similar action here. A recent CRTC report painted a rosy picture of service prices supposedly improving, but the steadily increasing wave of customer complaints strongly suggests declining competitive intensity in the sector. It’s worth noting that both Joly and CRTC chair Vicky Eatrides have declined invitations to appear on the Do Not Pass Go podcast, though the door remains open for both.

🛒 GROCERIES

• Toronto Councillor Anthony Perruzza made headlines last week by announcing that he wants the city to test run some PUBLIC GROCERY STORES in an effort to create more competition in the sector and drive prices lower. Both the Toronto Star and CBC this week delve into how that might work, which includes conversations with Aaron Vansintjan, policy manager with Food Secure Canada. Vantsintjan tells the news outlets the same thing he explained on our podcast back in January – that public grocery stores absolutely can work if they’re set up with the right distribution network.

• Grocery giant LOBLAW last week informed customers of a “low-level” data breach, but this week hacking trackers have suggested the company is downplaying the incident. According to one report, more than 75 million Salesforce records related to Loblaw may be affected. For its part, the company maintains that customer passwords, health information and credit card data were not compromised.

• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is cracking down on grocery chains including LOBLAW and SOBEYS for misleading shoppers by promoting imported foods as Canadian products. A number of $10,000 fines – for each incident – have already been issued, with the agency also confirming that it is investigating labelling and advertising practices overseen by Sobey’s head office.

💾 BIG TECH

• The bad news is a U.S. judge has rejected a class-action case against GOOGLE that alleged the company was overcharging Canadian customers of its Android app store. The good news is that the same judge affirmed Canada as a sovereign state in doing so, which is not nothing in this day and age. The case was brought last year by British Columbia resident Connor Hurley in the U.S. northern California district, alleging that Google was using anti-competitive means to force Canadians to pay “supra-competiive” prices on apps. This week, however, U.S. District Judge ‌James Donato ruled that, “this case concerns Canadian consumers purchasing products in Canada” and that U.S. antitrust laws do not “have any application to conduct within the sovereign state of Canada.” Hopefully the president is listening.

🥊 COMPETITION

• To get back to MANITOBA for a second, we missed this last week but it’s too important not to mention this week: aside from getting tough on surveillance pricing, the province is also moving on implementing laws that allow individuals and businesses to fiddle with and fix the goods they buy. Bill 15, the Consumer Protection Amendment Act, seeks to counter the endemic lock-down by manufacturers of a wide range of products, ranging from smartphones to tractors. These lock-downs force consumers to repair their goods only with the manufacturer or its licensed agents, which inevitably drives up costs. Between this and the algorithmic pricing ban… is anyone else who doesn’t already live there thinking about moving to Manitoba?

• The COMPETITION BUREAU has released a report on how shared kitchens and food hubs can make it easier for small- and medium-sized business to enter the food market. By sharing commercial-grade kitchens, processing equipment, storage facilities and packaging systems, small companies can reduce costs and their regulatory burdens, the report says. It’s a bit like getting a roommate when you can’t afford the rent on your own.

• The CANADIAN ANTI-MONOPOLY PROJECT is hiring. The advocacy group is looking for a communications and partnership lead who can write, edit and coordinate with other organizations. CAMP is accepting applications till April 3, check out the position here.

• And finally, in case you missed it, don’t forget to check out this week’s Do Not Pass Go podcast, in which Social Capital Partners chair Jon Shell extols the virtues of EMPLOYEE-OWNED TRUSTS, a new structure that allows owners to sell their businesses to their workers:

🚨 COMING UP

Ever wondered just what the heck the COMPETITION TRIBUNAL is? We’ve got you covered, with recently retired federal court Chief Justice PAUL CRAMPTON joining the podcast on Monday to talk about what this court-but-not-a-court does and how recent changes to Canada’s competition laws are likely to shake things up.

Welcome to another edition of the monthly Do Not Pass Go Lobby Report. This is an ongoing effort to shed light on who’s trying to influence who in Ottawa, and as always, it’s a continuing work in progress. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support work like this.

As usual, we’re highlighting the corporate interests that are lobbying the most in a given month and the public office holders who are meeting with them the most frequently. This month’s edition, covering all federal lobbying communications for the month of February, features a small format tweak. One individual company and office holder are being spotlighted for standing out from the pack for one reason or another.

The overall top lobbyists for the month by total communications reports were Les Producteurs de lait du Quebec (124), the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (68), the Semiahmoo First Nation (55), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (51, or 70 if CUPE B.C. is included), and the University of Saskatchewan (35).

CORPORATE LOBBYIST OF THE MONTH:

Secure Future Research (34)

Leading all corporate lobbyists in total communications reports for the month is U.K.-based Secure Future Research Ltd., which operates as ControlAI. This isn’t your typical entrant on our list of top business lobbyists because the company is a non-profit dedicated to warning lawmakers about the dangers – both economic and existential – of artificial intelligence.

The company’s listed Canadian representative is Samuel Buteau, a research scientist and consulting program officer based in Gatineau. Among the company’s total 34 reported communications for February, Buteau testified before Canada’s Senate Committee on Human Rights on Feb. 23, telling members that “AI companies are currently gambling with the life of every human being on the planet.”

The company met broadly with public office holders, mainly Members of Parliament, throughout the month. Buteau did not return a request for comment for further details on his communications.

Suncor (30)

Calgary-based Suncor placed second in February, with most of its lobbying focused on Natural Resources Canada and the department of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). The company’s communications were scattered throughout the month, with the biggest name being a meeting with deputy ECCC minister Mollie Johnson on Feb. 26.

Reported details for that communication including discussing regulatory frameworks “to enable successful closure and reclamation of oil sands mines.”

Separately, three days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a Colorado-based climate accountability lawsuit against Suncor and ExxonMobil. The news is considered a positive for the two companies as the state’s supreme court refused to dismiss the lawsuit, which has been brought by the city of Boulder.

Enbridge (28)

The natural gas company, also based in Calgary, directed much of its lobbying in February to ECCC and Natural Resources Canada, as well as Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs (CIRNA), with many communications happening on Feb. 9 and 10.

Valerie Gideon, deputy CIRNA minister, was the biggest name lobbied, who on Feb. 10 discussed “regulatory efficiency, as it pertains to environmental assessments and climate policies and taxation” as well as the North American energy market, indigenous engagement and pipeline projects, according to reported details.

Enbridge has been clashing with indigenous groups over pipelines, including the recently begun Line 5 project between Wisconsin and Ontario. As climate news site Grist points out, the company has agreements to pay for riot suits, training and policing hours for Wisconsin law enforcement involved in protests over its projects.

Air Products Canada (28)

The Canadian subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based Air Products and Chemicals did all of its monthly lobbying between Feb. 17 and 19, focusing on Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), Finance Canada and ECCC, with the biggest name again being ECCC deputy minister Mollie Johnson.

The company was pushing for tax credits under several government programs, including the Clean Hydrogen Investment Tax Credit and the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Investment Tax Credit.

Air Products has been facing criticism for several years now over delays to a “blue” hydrogen project in Edmonton, which the federal government helped fund with $300 million through its strategic innovation fund, as well as Alberta’s contribution of $161 million. Last year, the company said its Edmonton operation was an “under-performing asset” that wasn’t expected to be profitable.

Agnico Eagle Mines (27)

Gold miner Agnico Eagle Mines makes its second appearance on Do Not Pass Go’s monthly lobby report with 27 reported communications in February after posting 44 in December. The company focused mainly on Employment and Social Development Canada, National Defence and Natural Resources Canada, with many meetings happening on Feb. 5.

Its reported messages involved advocating for “the benefits of mining to the Canadian economy, including indigenous reconciliation” and raising awareness of new projects in Nunavut.

The company last month increased its ownership stake to 13 per cent in fellow Toronto-based resources company Maple Gold Mines.

LOBBIED OFFICE HOLDER OF THE MONTH:

Erin O’Brien, Natural Resources Canada (34)

Though she only placed second on the list of most-lobbied public office holders in February, O’Brien – assistant deputy minister and member of the Natural Resources Committee – is notable because 12 of those records involved Shell Canada.

Communications with the company took place throughout the month and list “decarbonization strategies” and “timely fiscal and regulatory policies and programs to advance energy transition and diversification” among reported details.

Neither O’Brien nor Natural Resources Canada responded to requests for further information on the meetings. Shell, meanwhile, was in the news last month for needing an exploration breakthrough to make up for a major expected shortage of oil output due to its maturing supply.

36: Galen Richardson, director of stakeholder relations, Privacy Council Office. This is the third lobby report we’ve published here that highlights individual leaders, and this is the third time Richardson has made the top five. In February, he met with a broad array of companies and organizations, including B.C.-based shipping service Trigon Pacific Terminals, the Supplier Diversity Alliance Canada advocacy group, and Whitehorse-based solar energy provider Solvest.

34: Paul Moen, chief of staff, ISED. Moen also met broadly, including three times with Australian mining company Wyloo, twice with B.C.-based carbon removal provider Svante, and twice with Air Products Canada, mentioned above.

32: Brenna Walsh, senior policy advisor, ECCC. Walsh’s communications for the month were broad, including a pair of meetings with the Environmental Defence Canada advocacy group, Calgary-based natural gas producer Tourmaline and B.C.-based ship fuel provider Seaspan Energy.

31: Yasmin Atassi, senior policy advisor, ISED. Like Richardson and O’Brien, Atassi is on her way to becoming an all-star on this list. In February, her meetings including three each with Wyloo, Honda Canada and Ford Canada.

On the one hand, big companies are continuing to snap up competitors. On the other, less visible serial acquirers – often private equity firms – are rolling up entire categories of businesses, from dental clinics and veterinarians to laundromats and car washes.

Fortunately, a new counter-force has begun to emerge: employee-owned trusts (EOTs). Enabled by legislation that came into force in 2024, these new structures allow rank-and-file employees to buy the companies they work for, providing a different option for owners who want to retire or otherwise exit their businesses.

It’s an exceptionally timely development – not just because EOTs are providing an alternative to further concentration, but also because of the nation’s looming succession crisis and a growing desire to keep local companies in Canadian hands.

Jon Shell, chair of Social Capital Partners and Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project board member, is perhaps the biggest proponent of EOTs in the country. He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to explain their upsides and downsides, and to warn that employee-owned trusts are at risk if the government doesn’t take immediate action on the tax incentives that make them appealing.

Learn more about employee-owned trusts here.

Read the letter signed by notable business leaders to the federal government here.

The Canadian Internet Society has had it with the nation’s broadcast and telecom regulator. In a white paper issued this week, the organization is calling for a wholesale review and overhaul of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) by the federal government.

“As an institution, the CRTC has failed to develop the technical, economic, and policy expertise necessary to fully understand the internet and how it transforms the legacy industries it was established to regulate,” the paper says. “It does not operate efficiently, transparently, or in a timely manner — essential attributes in rapidly evolving internet-enabled markets.”

The report criticizes the CRTC for being unable to adapt to technological change and reflect consumer interests in its rulings, while also being prone to political interference. The Internet Society, which advocates for affordability, accessibility and security online and which is made up of lawyers, academics and representatives from industry, is urging the government to adopt a suite of 25 recommendations laid out in the paper.

A few of them include:

• Reducing the number of commissioners from 13 to nine and ensuring they all have experience in their respective fields – which in telecom would include engineering, economics and competition policy – and paying them at market rates.

• Structurally separating the CRTC into broadcast and telecom divisions.

• Taking wireless spectrum control including auctions away from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) and giving it to the CRTC.

• Removing cabinet’s ability to change or set aside CRTC decisions.

• Requiring senior staff and commissioners to publicly report all private meetings they have with industry representatives.

• Undertaking a thorough review and reform of wholesale telecom access policy, including functional separation of large firms “rather than continuing what has become an unproductive stalemate.”

Leonard St. Aubin, a member of the Internet Society’s policy committee and author of the paper, tells Do Not Pass Go that the recommendations were arrived at after a round-table meeting last year of a wide variety of stakeholders. Attendees included representatives from large and small firms, academics, civil society groups and policy experts.

The Society decided to release the paper now because the federal government is still relatively new. Ongoing trade issues with the United States are also adding relevancy and urgency to legislation the CRTC is still working to implement, including the Online Streaming Act and Online News Act.

“It’s time for a change,” St. Aubin says. “Timeliness is everything. With regulatory decisions, if you don’t have a decision, if the decisions take too long, things get overtaken by events and, for the most part, that kind of delay benefits incumbents.”

Neither the CRTC nor ISED, which oversees the regulator, were able to provide comments on the report by publication time.

📱 TELECOM

• In a bit of serendipity, the CRTC this week announced it is banning internet and cellphone service fees that act as impediments to customers switching providers, as of June 12. The main applicable fees in this case are activation charges, which have risen repeatedly over the past few years and are generally now $80. As if to underline the Internet Society’s above point on timeliness, the CRTC’s ruling comes nearly 16 months after the regulator launched its investigation into whether such fees were in fact acting as deterrents to switching. A spokesperson for the regulator explains that this week’s announcement is the culmination of consultations on the matter and amendments to the Telecommunications Act that came into force in Oct. 2025. In a briefing with reporters on Thursday afternoon, a CRTC representative could not put a number on how much consumers have paid in activation fees over the past few years or how much the ban might now save them. The representative also could not say that any measures were being put in place to prevent telcos from recouping their lost activation fee revenue in other ways – say, by simply raising monthly service prices: “We can’t control how they’re going to react.” The companies also have all of the usual appeal routes available to them, which includes asking the CRTC itself, or the courts or cabinet, to overturn the ruling.

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT & LEISURE

• This past week was the week that the LIVE NATION antitrust case became a circus. It started Monday morning, just one week into the trial, with a surprise settlement announcement by the entertainment giant and the U.S. Department of Justice. The deal, which involves Live Nation paying a fine of $280 million (U.S.) or the equivalent of a few days’ revenue, allowing venues to sell a portion of tickets through providers other than its TICKETMASTER subsidiary, and a handful of other clauses, was likely politically arranged as both the judge and even the DOJ’s own prosecuting attorney were not privy to settlement discussions even happening. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian blasted the parties for showing “absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and this entire process.” More than two dozen U.S. states – both Democrat and Republican – vowed to continue the case and moved for a mistrial. Meanwhile, more dirty laundry emerged, with employees’ Slack messages revealing contempt for ticket-buying customers, referring to them as “so stupid” and how Live Nation was “robbing them blind.” As one former U.S. antitrust official told NBC News this week, “You really couldn’t send a clearer message that antitrust is dead at the federal level than settling this particular case.”

• Montreal’s LA RONDE amusement park has been sold by SIX FLAGS to real estate investment trust EPR PROPERTIES for an undisclosed amount. The Kansas City-based company owns a growing empire of amusement parks, ski resorts and eat-and-play properties, including four Entertainment Centrum locations in Ontario. Originally part of Expo 67, La Ronde had swapped hands before ending up with U.S. amusement park chain Six Flags in 1998.

• From amusement parks to nature’s playgrounds, PARKS CANADA has announced it is implementing paid parking at the base of the Sulphur Mountain Gondola, just south of the town of Banff. Starting May 15, drivers will have to pay $17.70 per day at the lots as part of an effort to reduce traffic congestion in the town, with visitors urged to instead use provided shuttle buses. The gondola is owned by PURSUIT ATTRACTIONS, the Denver-based company that has sparked controversy over its monopoly of tourist attractions in the Banff and Jasper national parks.

• Video gamers lost it this week on reports that SONY is experimenting with dynamic PlayStation pricing. The tests, which showed online users personalized discounts for more than 150 games based on their purchase history and account activity, took place in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, but not the U.S. or Japan because of stricter regulations and heightened consumer sensitivity, according to Newsweek. No kidding: “This has got to be illegal,” said one TikTokker, “just because someone buys more games than someone else doesn’t mean that they should be charged more.” To make matters worse for Sony, a U.K. court this week also heard that millions of PlayStation users in the country have been victims of “excessive and unfair” download charges in a continuing class-action case. At issue is a complaint that the company is preventing players from purchasing digital products outside of its own closed ecosystem.

🥊 COMPETITION

• Hot off the heels of the news that former COMPETITION COMMISSIONER Matthew Boswell has landed a job at a law firm is the news that the government is now looking for his full-time replacement. The feds have posted the job, which pays between $341,800 and $402,100 a year and counts a law degree and bilingualism as assets. Experience and knowledge of competition law and policy are musts, though. If you’re interested, don’t waste time – applications close on Apr. 8.

• On a similar topic, the terms of nearly all of the lay members of the COMPETITION TRIBUNAL are just about up. Four of the five members – including Wiktor Askanas, a business professor at the University of New Brunswick; Binah Nathan, a corporate director; Stephen Law, an economics professor at Mount Allison University; and Ted Horbulyk, an associate professor emeritus of economics at the University of Calgary – are scheduled to have their terms end on Apr. 14. Lay member appointments are made by the federal government based on recommendations by the ISED Minister, who is currently MELANIE JOLY. “All new appointments to the Tribunal will be made under the government’s process for Governor in Council appointments with the goal of ensuring open, competency-based appointments,” an ISED spokesperson says. “Appointments will be made in due course.” The lay members serve alongside judges on the Tribunal, which operates mostly like a court. Stay tuned… we’ll have more on the Competition Tribunal and how it works here shortly.

• And speaking of the COMPETITION BUREAU, the enforcement agency announced this week that it had arrived at a settlement with retirement home operator CHARTWELL MASTER CARE regarding the company’s planned acquisition of six properties in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. area. Chartwell is buying six retirement homes from Sifton Properties and, as part of its deal with the Bureau, has agreed to sell its Clair Hills home in Waterloo to a purchaser approved by the commissioner.

🛒 GROCERIES

• There’s a new app in town designed to help shoppers save money on groceries by analyzing and comparing prices on items across nearby stores. GOFER.RUN has been developed by One Red Maple Inc., a software development firm based in North Bay, Ont., and doesn’t require the user’s name or email address. Users input their grocery lists and the app tells them where those items can be found at the cheapest prices. Developers say the average family will save about 25 per cent if they buy their products at the right places.

• The idea of PUBLIC GROCERY STORES is officially on the table in TORONTO, with city councillor Anthony Perruzza suggesting as much this week. Perruzza wants the city to open and operate four stores, one in each community council district, to help combat skyrocketing food prices. Council is expected to consider the test idea – which was the topic of a recent podcast episode here at Do Not Pass Go – at its next meeting, on Mar. 25.

🏦 BANKS

• Caps on not-sufficient-funds (NSF) fees are in place, with banks now limited to $10 – down from the $45 to $48 that many were charging – when customer accounts aren’t able to cover debit transactions. Banks are also prohibited from charging more than one NSF fee every two business days on the the same account. ACORN CANADA, an advocacy group for low and moderate-income earners, are fans of the new rules. “Our pockets are smiling! This is a major victory showing organizing works when we act collectively,” said ACORN Canada national president Alejandra Ruiz Vargas in a statement. The group believes the cap will save Canadians $4.1 billion over the next decade.

• Count retirees among those who are also displeased with Canada’s big banks. The CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS (CARP) has filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau, alleging that sales practices used by branch employees are anti-competitive and harmful to consumers. The Big Five go out of their way to sell only their own products to the group’s members, rather than informing them of the wider slate of available investment options. “This structure essentially kills any competition once investors enter their local branches,” a representative tells The Globe and Mail. In response, the Canadian Bankers Association says it welcomes the opportunity for further dialogue with CARP.

✈️ AIRLINES

• In a great example of saying the quiet part out loud, AIR TRANSAT chief financial officer Jean-Francois Pruneau this week inadvertently nailed the problem with Canada’s airlines while discussing price increases on flights due to the Iran war. On the company’s quarterly earnings calls, he mentioned that Transat will be raising prices to respond to skyrocketing jet fuel prices, though he may have been a little too candid about it: “What we’re also doing is currently raising fares on peak travel dates and routes where we see less competition, where we have more flexibility.”

• The Canadian Transportation Agency has hit WESTJET with a $70,000 fine for failing to provide passengers on a cancelled Calgary-to-Nanaimo flight last year with “food and drink in reasonable quantities.” Air passenger rights activist Gabor Lukacs told CTV News that, not only was the fine too small, the CTA was also announcing it to distract from the fact that it has not taken action in the more serious case of WestJet recently stranding passengers in Mexico. “Where are the consequences for that?” he said.

• Speaking of GABOR LUKACS, he’s the guest on this week’s episode of the Do Not Pass Go podcast. If you haven’t listened yet, be sure to check it out to hear the amazing story about how he fled familial abuse in Hungary and got his PhD in math while still in his teens, before fighting Canada’s airlines dozens of times in court – and winning:

🚨 COMING UP

Acquisitions by big companies and private equity roll-ups are an ongoing threat to further concentration in the Canadian economy, which is why the emergence of a brand new option – employee-owned businesses – is a welcome development. On Monday, Social Capital Partners chair JON SHELL joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to explain the benefits and downsides of employee-owned trusts, and why the federal government needs to take action now to ensure that they remain an option for business owners.

Over just the past year, the government has ignored a major report issued by the Competition Bureau that recommends solutions to the problem. The passenger complaint backlog continues to mount and sits at close to 100,000, with each individual issue taking years to resolve. And worse still, the feds are actively delaying making airlines pay for that complaints system.

With such inaction and even complicity by officials, other resistance emerges. Enter Gabor Lukacs.

For nearly 20 years, this one name has been striking fear into airlines by becoming synonymous with air passenger rights – in fact, Air Passenger Rights is his group, which has more than 274,000 members on Facebook.

Lukacs has fought – and won – dozens of court battles with the industry, getting passengers justice and the money they’re owed. He’s a fixture in virtually every news report on airline misdeeds, which is to say he’s on TV a lot. He’s the nation’s veritable avatar of discontent.

But who is Gabor Lukacs? Why has he taken up this crusade? What drives him?

A math prodigy from the beginning, Lukacs along with his father escaped an abusive mother in Hungary when he was just eight years old, setting a precedent in international child abduction law in the process. Then, he moved to Canada when he was just 16 to begin a PhD before becoming an extraordinarily young math professor.

He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to share his remarkable story and how it fuels his crusade for the justice that the government refuses to deliver.

For more, check out airpassengerrights.ca.

What if someone were to cut the toes off your socks or sawed just a tiny bit off the legs of your tables to make them wobbly? That’s the premise behind the new “Make it Shitty” video from the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) that went viral this week. The hilarious four-minute spot follows a professional “enshittifier” who works diligently to make life worse for people by committing little acts of sabotage, like shaking up pop bottles or taking chains off bike sprockets. Our protagonist then discovers the internet and that it allows him to ply his trade at scale, and boy does that make him happy:

It’s of course a parable for Big Tech that borrows heavily from Canadian activist-author (and Do Not Pass Go podcast guest) Cory Doctorow, whose 2025 book Enshittification outlines how companies such as Google, Amazon and Meta have locked users into steadily worsening services while simultaneously killing off competition.

The video is also tied to a new campaign by the NCC for stronger competition enforcement and digital protections. The advocacy group’s “Break Free” report outlines how these companies have amassed their power and suggests ways to reverse it, including better rights for consumers to modify their devices and services; stronger interoperability and online decentralization; more vigorous enforcement of competition laws; measures to encourage development of alternative providers; and reducing public sector dependence on Big Tech.

To go with the report, the NCC and other civil groups across Europe and the United States have sent letters to the European Commission and U.S. Congress urging action to restore competition and protect consumers.

“Consumers are being boiled alive and, because it’s happening gradually, we don’t notice,” Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy at the NCC, tells Do Not Pass Go. “This report and video is borne out of the frustration that we’ve felt for so many years and the realization that the current remedies we have are not sufficient.”

The Consumers Council of Canada confirms it has discussed the report with the NCC. “The underlying premise of purposefully dis-improved technology and everything being subject to a subscription model is a core 21^st century problem, along with all the legacy consumer issues that exist,” says Neil Hartung, a lawyer with the organization.

Doctorow, for his part, also gets a kick out of the Norwegian group’s take. “It’s an honour to have my work cited in this wonderful video,” he tells Do Not Pass Go. “This is a fantastic example of what truly great consumer advocacy can be.”

🥊 COMPETITION

• Former Competition Commissioner (and first ever Do Not Pass Go podcast guest) MATTHEW BOSWELL has landed a new job. The Globe and Mail reports that Boswell, who led the Competition Bureau for seven years, is now a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright’s antitrust practice. Boswell’s role is to help the law firm’s clients understand the recent changes to competition laws, some of which he advocated for and helped usher in during his tenure.

• The federal government this week announced it is keeping the merger review threshold for the COMPETITION BUREAU unchanged in 2026, at $93 million. The enforcement agency thus won’t be required to look at deals where the acquiree has less than $93 million in assets or revenue or where the combined entity has assets or revenue less than $400 million, although it still can if it really wants to. Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, says keeping the threshold steady is a good thing: “The government was wise to keep the merger notification threshold flat, and it should continue to do so. Increasing the threshold in line with inflation [would] mean more transactions slipping under the radar when we need to be tightening our approach to mergers. We need more information about mergers and acquisitions in our economy, not less.”

📱 TELECOM

• It looks like BELL and TELUS have called a truce in their battle over wholesale access to each others’ fibre networks, which they are using to provide internet services to customers in their respective territories. Telus was the first to gripe to the CRTC about Bell being obstructive in providing access in Ontario and Quebec, with Bell then making the same complaints about Telus in western Canada. The companies have made peace and withdrawn their CRTC complaints, though no details of the agreement or how it came to be are known.

• Speaking of TELUS, the company says it is aiming to have a partner in place for its Telus Health division by the summer, just in time for new chief executive Victor Dodig (the former CEO of CIBC) to take over from outgoing boss Darren Entwistle. Telus says it wants to maintain majority ownership of the Health business for the foreseeable future, but is open to selling a minority stake or eventually floating it through an initial public offering. And, on the topic of telcos making forays outside their core competencies, ROGERS is now the first issuer of the World Legend Mastercard, a new premium tier of the credit card that offers above-average cash-back returns for the company’s customers. The $495-a-year card through Rogers Bank – yes, that exists – comes with a host of perks for high-end spenders, including free roaming, travel insurance and streaming credits.

• Meanwhile, telco price hikes are coming in hot and heavy. TELUS’s Koodo brand is jacking up bills by $7 while its Public Mobile “discount” division is also raising prices by $2 to $4 per month. Not wanting to be left out, ROGERS is raising internet and TV prices by $7 per month. Not only are the telcos back to regular increases, it looks like $7 is the new $5.

🕺 ENTERTAINMENT

• The LIVE NATION antitrust trial began this week in New York and, as expected, the company’s dirty laundry has started to come out. Among the gems to emerge already include the former Barclays Center CEO revealing that Live Nation yanked tours from the Brooklyn arena when it opted to use a different ticket provider, as well as competitor SeatGeek offering venues “retaliation insurance” if they switched away from Ticketmaster. Department of Justice attorney David Dahlquit told jurors that, “the concert industry itself is broken.” David Marriott, the defendant’s lawyer, countered with, “Live Nation and Ticketmaster are all about bringing joy to people’s lives.”

• U.S. luxury cinema chain iPIC THEATRES’ woes may not seem super relevant to Canadians but they could foreshadow what’s to come for the movie-exhibition industry, as our next item illustrates. The iPic chain, which touts luxury seating and an in-seat dining experience that sounds a lot like the VIP option at CINEPLEX, hasn’t been able to recover from the Covid shutdown and is now pursuing a sale through Chapter 11 bankrupting protection.

• That adds intrigue to this week’s Do Not Pass Go podcast episode, in which arts journalist and theatre historian Eric Veillette opines on the future of large chains including CINEPLEX. Veillette sees chains shrinking and independent cinemas, many of which are currently booming, gaining more relevance:

🛒 RETAIL & GROCERY

• Canada’s Privacy Commissioner revealed this week that LOBLAW had been violating information retention principles found under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) with its PC Optimum loyalty program. The regulator found that Loblaw, Canada’s largest grocery chain, was taking an unreasonable amount of time to address account deletion requests, that it did not respond to certain privacy-related inquiries and that it was retaining customers’ information longer than needed. Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said in a release that the company has agreed to respond faster to deletion requests and to implement better anonymization processes, but no penalty was announced. The regulator doesn’t have the power to penalize violators, but would very much like to be able to do so. “The OPC has long called for privacy law reform to modernize Canada's federal private-sector privacy law, to give the Commissioner the ability to make orders and impose penalties,” a spokesperson says.

🏦 BANKS

• Remember when everybody got excited by the last fall’s federal budget, which promised to finally introduce OPEN BANKING this year? Yeah, well, not so fast, according to Ron Morrow, the Bank of Canada’s executive director of payments, supervision and oversight. At the Open Banking Expo in Toronto this week, Morrow said it’s going to be extremely difficult to do this year because of how much works needs to be done. The central bank is still in its information-gathering stage, which could take months.

💾 BIG TECH

• In case you missed it, GOOGLE suffered a big loss this week at the Competition Tribunal, which ruled that the Competition Bureau’s abuse-of-dominance challenge against the company in the online advertising market can move ahead. Google had argued that the potential financial penalty in the civil proceeding could exceed $90 billion, which would qualify it for criminal protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Tribunal didn’t agree. Read more here:

🚨 COMING UP

Whenever there’s a news story about Canada’s airlines doing something bad, there’s almost always a quote or two in there from one industry critic: GABOR LUKACS. For nearly 20 years, this one-man air force (and math prodigy) has been taking the likes of Air Canada and WestJet to court on behalf of passengers – and winning. He joins Do Not Pass Go this Monday to talk about what drives him and what needs to change to fix Canada’s worsening airline problem.