Over 4,700 Canadians Call for a Strong Competition Commissioner to Fight Monopolies

Competition keeps our economy fair, affordable, and growing. In one week, over 4,700 people joined OpenMedia’s call for a Commissioner who will defend consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs.

On December 5, 2025, OpenMedia submitted an Open Letter to Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, urging her to appoint a strong, pro-consumer Commissioner of Competition who will take on monopolies in the upcoming selection process.

Competition is what keeps our economy fair, affordable, and growing. Yet in the past two decades, more and more Canadian industries have been taken over by just a few powerful players, who raise prices, stifle innovation, push workers into insecure gig jobs, and block better choices from reaching people.

Canadians have been hit by products designed to fail, sky-high internet bills, grocery chains that seem to keep prices locked in, or tech giants that dominate everything online. In Halifax, for example, federal investigators found that big grocers like Sobeys and Loblaw use “property controls” that basically stop competitors from opening nearby. While in Manitoba, gas stations are using pricing algorithms that drive prices up across entire regions, and real estate commission rules are making buying a home even more expensive.

The lack of Bureau intervention against monopolies has created the economy we see today and fueled Canada’s competition crisis, where mergers are rarely blocked and disastrous mega-mergers like Rogers-Shaw go through unchecked, hurting consumers with higher costs and fewer choices. That’s why we need a Commissioner who will challenge corporate power head-on—someone who will stand up for people, stop monopolies from consolidating entire industries, and prevent dominant companies from bending the rules in their favour.

Strong competition policy is essential for everyday affordability and for Canada’s economic sovereignty. Achieving this requires a Commissioner who will take on both domestic and foreign monopolies in defence of consumers, workers, and businesses—a leader with a clear public mandate to use competition law to stop harmful mergers and abuses of dominance.

The appointment of the next Commissioner will determine whether the strengthened competition laws passed in 2023 are actually used to challenge and break up entrenched monopolies, or whether those monopolies continue to call the shots. A Commissioner committed to tackling corporate concentration can direct the Bureau to conduct market studies that reveal how dominant players drive up prices and suppress competition. An industry-friendly Commissioner, however, could simply allow the Bureau to sit back and let today’s distorted market dynamics shape Canada’s future.

In the Open Letter, 4,715 people across Canada call on the Minister to appoint a Commissioner who will fight for ordinary Canadians and take meaningful action against monopolies.

The letter is now available in English.