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Canada is intentionally setup to produce oligopolies as a defense against large American companies:

"Canada was, in a lot of ways, built on monopolies — think about the Hudson’s Bay Company or Canadian Pacific Rail. Canada has always feared that if we don’t let our homegrown companies get huge, we’ll get swamped by American competitors. That’s why there’s a tension between Canadian politicians, who often say they’re pro-competition, and the law, which incentivizes consolidation."

I think this strategy work well-enough until about 20 years ago. And by well enough I mean Canadian consumers weren't in an ideal situation, but things were good enough for most Canadians. Now the oligopolies have become basically predatory, gobbling up goverment funds and market capture wherever possible.

Case in point: our Temporary Foreign Worker program (who now make up 7% of the Canadian population) have not only strained housing, healthcare, and the job market it has even been called a "breeding ground for slavery" by the U.N. [1].

[0] https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/canada-monopolie... [1] https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/120/97/pdf/g24120...

Which is a self reinforcing cycle as the badly run Canadian companies need state monopolies to remain competitive

I don't think the temporary foreign worker program makes up 7% of the Canadian population (that'd be like 2.7 million people).

To be fair it's actually very annoying to find what the actual number is, but this study covering up to 2022 indicates that the number is probably no higher than 1 million (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023010/artic...).

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...

Probably the most up to date we'd get. I think your numbers are about right at around 1 million for temporary workers and students combined.

There's a fascinating cultural history of accepting cartels/oligopoly in Canada. I've heard it described as an "Us Against the Vast North" attitude that prevailed as the British settled Canada.

Also, I believe Canada's merger laws are very different from the USA's. We (in Canada) didn't check whether a merger is better for customers, the standard was to check whether it was good for shareholders. I believe this is changing with a modification to merger laws in the last year or two. It's slow, but change is coming.

Mergers have been challenged based upon free market competition for decades, and likely longer. Many mergers go forward with government imposed conditions.

Canada has something called the "Efficiencies Defence" for Mergers. My understanding is that it is used to push through harmful (to consumers) mergers by showing that the shareholders of the merging organizations benefit more than consumers are harmed. Therefore, the merger must go through. Truly twisted.

https://www.theworldlawgroup.com/membership/news/government-...

https://www.stikeman.com/en-ca/kh/canadian-ma-law/the-role-o...

What are the facts? The most important fact is that only a very small number of deals, of limited consequence to the Canadian economy, have gone ahead because of the defence.

...

Indeed, since 2009, the bureau has, we believe, cited the defence only four times (including one transaction that did not proceed in any event) as the reason for its decision not to challenge a merger. In context, roughly 3,000 transactions were reviewed in that same period.

and

https://mcmillan.ca/insights/publications/federal-court-of-a...

On August 1, 2023, the Federal Court of Appeal released its decision in Secure v Commissioner of Competition,[1] upholding the Competition Tribunal’s order requiring Secure Energy Inc. to divest 29 facilities to remedy the anti-competitive effects in 136 markets in western Canada arising from its July 2021 acquisition of Tervita Corporation.[2] It provides important guidance on the standard to be met to establish an efficiencies defense under the Competition Act.

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Whatever website or platform you read this on, viewed this on, understand that a simple clause in an act must be interpreted by courts, and taken into consideration with all other aspects of a body of legislation. It also must be taken into account with all other case law.

While there are works to amend this act, as you can see from the links above this clause has very little real world impact.

My thoughts on this is that it is another way to gain outrage clicks, and another way to frame a democracy as failing.

From your description it sounds as if we're stuck in a local optimum. It's tough to break out of that, but there's a lot of technological change coming our way and that tends to disrupt the status quo.

> there's a lot of technological change coming our way

Could you give some examples of some technologies that might disrupt the status quo being referred to?

The numerous problems that Canada is facing today are ultimately caused by government interference.

While we've certainly seen technology cause and enable change in the private sector, the public sector can basically just ignore disruptive technologies without any real consequences.

If the public sector ever did face any sort of real disruption due to technology, the public sector would likely just regulate away the technology that's causing them problems.

The situation is made worse by a big proportion of the Canadian population being heavily dependent, directly or indirectly, on large and inefficient government. This includes much of the mainstream media, in addition to the overtly government-controlled services (education, health care, policing, etc.), and government itself (politicians, bureaucrats, etc.). These people have no incentive for positive change, and actually a lot of incentive for things to get much worse than they already are.

I think it'll be a mix of economic and demographic factors that eventually result in change, rather than technological factors.

Decades of awful immigration policies have created a society in Canada that's now extremely fractured, well beyond the traditional (and mild in comparison) English/French divide that has already caused enough problems in the past.

Eventually, the already-severe economic inefficiency imposed by government will become unsustainable, and economic troubles will result in "Balkanization" occurring. It will be particularly bad in parts of Ontario and BC, where we already see this beginning to happen.

> Decades of awful immigration

Care to defined "awful" here? Is this an euphemism to refer to non-European immigrants?

Canada has done very well with immigration IMO. A far more sensible and welcoming system, and most immigrants integrate and do well in Canada pretty quickly.

Bringing in culturally-incompatible foreigners has certainly been a significant problem in Canada.

Bringing in low-skill, low-productivity, and often criminally-inclined foreigners (especially refugees) has also been a significant and socially-costly problem in Canada.

Bringing in foreign "students" has harmed the quality and reputation of Canada's education systems.

Bringing in adult foreigners to do the low-end, part-time jobs that Canadian high school students and university students used to do has hurt Canada economically, and resulted in atrocious service in many retail stores and restaurants.

Bringing in huge numbers of foreigners each year, while simultaneously restricting the construction of new housing, has created severe pricing distortions in the housing and rental markets. These foreigners also put immense strain on the already-insufficient transportation and health care infrastructure.

What you say about "integration" is a myth. A visit to the cities surrounding Vancouver or Toronto will make that very clear, very quickly.

Immigration has been disastrous for Canada.

> It seems tricky from the gov's perspective because this oligopoly/collusion behavior likely fuels higher GDP and more tax revenue... but ultimately more competition and consumer protection would make for a better country to live in.

Or because the government is working for these oligopolies and not for the people, regardless of the color of their party's logo.

> In Canada if you look at telecoms, banks, insurance, grocers, airlines, etc – there are a few major competitors and that's about it. It's very difficult to start a competitor, often for regulatory reasons, and most smaller competitors end up getting bought out by the big guys.

> As a result, they have crazy shitty experiences. Telecoms are frustratingly expensive for cable and mobile services. Banks are dreadful and charge fees left and right, for basic things that are free in the US. Customer support with any of these companies is terrible.

This is funny to me from across the pond, because that's how I'd describe the US as well.

Small amount of telecoms and banks that charge exorbitant fees sounds like the US too.

High barrier to entry for physical infrastructure and banking are the reality all around the world, and for good reasons. There's more to it than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks_in_the_U... In the first quarter of 2024, there were 4,012 commercial banks and 556 savings and loan associations in the U.S. insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) with US$23.957 trillion in assets.[1]

Canada has the big 5 / 6 and then a lot of credit unions. Still not 1/10 as many as the good old USA, and that's one industry.

> Canada has the big 5 / 6 and then a lot of credit unions

Can't you say literally the same thing about the US?

According to this, the big 5 control 89% of the banking sector in Canada, and 35% of the market share in the USA. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/canada-u-s-banking-differen...

Let's just agree to disagree.

Interesting history! For the record, it's not like telecoms aren't an oligopoly in the USA, with the attendant "crazy shitty" customer service.

Yeah I honestly can't imagine how the customer experience could possibly be much worse than what we've got in the US but their speeds are generally lower and costs significantly higher. When I visited Toronto years ago I had a consistently better data connection than my friend who lived there, and paid less for the international roaming to use it than he paid for his regular domestic data plan.

Canada mobile plans are far more expensive in Canada than the US.

I'm originally from Canada and I think what you failed to realize is the Oligopoly is the Gov and it doesn't matter which one is in power. Canada is controlled by a few very rich families and they basically lay out how everything is going to work. The Gov puts on a good show but as you and I have seen, nothing changes. It is all theater for the masses and none of their promises come to fruition.

There is only one way to bring true competition to the Canadian market and that is to let American Companies compete instead of barring them from Canadian markets.

If you recall during NAFTA 2, Trudeau went to great efforts to allow Rogers, Bell and Telus to be re-classified as Canadian Media Companies to protect them from the American businesses. Canadians cheered higher prices and protectionism because fuck America and fuck Trump, but in the end cut off their nose to spite their face.

Canadians deserve their high prices and lack of competition and a market that is not consumer friendly, they made that loud and clear in their support of the Liberals during NAFTA2 Negotiations.

Glad I left a long time ago....

ExPat