OPINION | Boswell woke up Canada’s competition watchdog. With his departure imminent, it must get to work.

For decades, becoming Canada’s Commissioner of Competition seemed to come with a mandatory sedative. You were the traffic cop of a country where speed limits for consolidation didn't exist. Your office was hamstrung by some of the weakest competition laws in the OECD, and cursed by the “get-out-of-jail-free” card for any oligopoly that could argue its merger created corporate savings. Developing durable market power through consolidation wasn't just allowed in Canada, it was practically government policy. If Canada’s monopolies had simply stood still — burdensome, a permanent drag on Canadian prosperity and affordability — we might still be living in that world. But without strong safeguards, monopoly power never rests. Buyouts beget buyouts, markets consolidate, and the power of the handful of corporate giants every Canadian is forced to use grew and grew, from Bell, Telus, and Rogers, to Loblaws, Ticketmaster, Meta, and Google. Something had to give, and during the tenure of outgoing Competition Commissioner Matthew Boswell, something finally did. Over his seven years at the helm, Boswell’s Bureau started picking real fights with the oligopolies that dominate our lives. When the Bureau won, as with 2024’s Cineplex "drip pricing" case which targeted junk fees placed on orders on top of the company’s advertised prices, it effectively used competition law to protect Canadian consumers, a near-novel concept for our country. But its failures mattered, too. The failure to stop the Rogers-Shaw deal — a buyout condemned by experts, MPs, and the public — exposed the deep cracks in our competition laws, paving the way for the major reforms passed in 2022 and 2023. And embarrassingly paltry fines like the $9 million the Bureau secured from Meta’s Facebook for privacy violations in 2020, compared to $5 billion for like violations in the U.S., proved that its enforcement powers were too weak to deter bad behaviour, and needed to be drastically expanded. Boswell’s tenure didn't fix Canada’s competition crisis; there was simply too much work to do. But today, oligopolies have reason to fear our regulator may actually regulate them. The Bureau now has market study powers to subpoena information and prove exactly how industries are ripping us off. The efficiencies defence is gone. The penalties for anti-competitive behaviour have been raised from "cost of doing business" levels to numbers that actually hurt. And unsurprisingly, an energized Bureau has recently opened cases against the practices of many of our oligopolies, from Google and Amazon to Sobeys and Loblaws. The critical question for the federal government as Boswell leaves office is simple: Will they appoint a successor who keeps using the Bureau’s newfound teeth, or someone who puts the muzzle back on? The next Commissioner should be one who continues Boswell’s legacy, bringing a prosecutor’s mindset ready to pick fights in defense of the public. They could even deepen the Bureau’s work to examine how competition can improve the other side of the cost of living, the paycheques we bring home every month. Competition law long ignored the consequences of monopoly on workers and their wages, but this is now changing. Recent reforms on wage-fixing and the impacts of mergers on workers provide a foundation for a pro-worker Commissioner to build on. But there’s nothing stopping a new Commissioner from sitting on their hands for a five-year term and quietly letting today’s cases fall apart. And there will be powerful voices in the ear of our government arguing that Canada needs someone who won’t make waves, offend U.S. giants, or stop our domestic monopolies from doing as they please. If the government caves to that pressure, the hard-won legislative victories of the last two years will be worthless. A law is only as good as its enforcer. You can have the toughest anti-monopoly law in the world, but if the person in charge is afraid to upset Bay Street or Silicon Valley, Canada’s economic competitiveness and affordability will not meaningfully improve. At a recent conference, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said the Carney government would be "hawkish" on competition. Maybe so, but personnel is policy, and her office’s choice of the next Commissioner will determine what these remarks mean in practice. Matthew Boswell woke our watchdog up. He taught it how to bark. Now, we need a Commissioner who isn't afraid to bite. If we get anything less, we’ll know exactly whose side this government is on. Matt Hatfield is Executive Director of OpenMedia, Canada’s grassroots digital rights community of 230,000+ Canadians. Since 2019, he has led OpenMedia campaigns to make Canada’s Internet more affordable, private, open, and free. Previously he worked at IFEX, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, defending freedom of expression in partnership with peers in global democracies in crisis. The Wire Report welcomes submissions of opinion pieces from outside contributors who are knowledgeable on the subject matter discussed. For more information on what should be included with opinion piece submissions, click here: hilltimes.com/submit-an-article. Submissions can be sent to news@thewirereport.ca. To see previous opinion piece submissions, click here: thewirereport.ca/tag/opinion/.

OPINION | Boswell woke up Canada’s competition watchdog. With his departure imminent, it must get to work.

Opinion |
By Matt Hatfield
|December 3, 2025

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OPINION | Boswell woke up Canada’s competition watchdog. With his departure imminent, it must get to work.

Opinion | By Matt Hatfield |December 3, 2025

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