Do Not Pass Go with Peter Nowak

In December last year, Ubisoft Halifax employees voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a union – 74 per cent said yes. Just a few weeks later, the French company shut the studio down and laid off everyone. Legal action followed, which the two sides settled in April, only for Ubisoft to then close its Winnipeg studio in June, laying off a further 65 employees. Those layoffs – more than 45,...

The NDP took a drubbing in the last federal election, suffering its worst defeat in history. The party lost 17 seats, with its share of the popular vote falling by two-thirds to just 6.3 per cent. Some of that was because many Canadians got spooked by Donald Trump’s 51st state rhetoric, so they rallied behind the Liberal party to prevent a Conservative win. But part of it was also because, as many...

Want to cancel your phone or internet service? Better carve out a serious chunk of time for calling in to plead and argue with a customer agent. The irony is that same service might have taken only seconds to sign up for online in the first place. And it’s not just telecom, it’s widespread. Satellite radio, gym memberships, newspaper subscriptions – there are no shortages of businesses in Canada t...

Surveillance pricing is firmly in the public crosshairs, with the federal government this week introducing legislation to govern the controversial practice. Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, promises to ensure that Canadians’ “personal information is used responsibly, transparently and for appropriate purposes, including to address unfair uses of personal information such as...

One question we often ask in these parts is what can the average person do about monopolies and oligopolies? The answers vary depending on the situation, ranging from boycotts of products and services to shareholder activism and even political action. But with so many Canadians struggling just to make ends meet – when many are working multiple jobs and have precious little time or energy to devote...

Many of us see supposed discounts every day – products in flyers or on websites where the “regular” price is crossed out and replaced by a supposed sale price: a vacuum that is normally $599 is now $499, or a pair of pants that usually sells for $99, now only $49! Sometimes the deals are legitimate, but often they’re fake discounts meant to mislead consumers into thinking they’re getting a bargain...

Payouts in the class-action lawsuit against Loblaw for its role in the Great Canadian Bread Price-Fixing Scandal are now going out, which is great news… but also not. The $49.11 deposits, being paid out to those who registered for the lawsuit, are a drop in the bucket compared to what the scandal has cumulatively cost Canadian households – and a reminder of the big competitive problems plaguing th...

Canada has some of the most expensive elevators in the world — and as a result, we have far fewer of them per capita than most countries in the world. It’s a symptom of a much larger problem involving regulation, competition, housing affordability and Canada’s relationship with the United States. The two countries have effectively isolated themselves from the global elevator market by maintaining...

Industry concentration, supply problems and the war in Iran are all contributing to ever-escalating grocery prices for Canadians, but there’s also a serious anti-competitive issue behind them: restrictive real-estate covenants. These secretive real-estate deals, signed by Loblaws, Sobeys and others when they open stores, are keeping competitors away and funnelling consumers toward existing stores....

Fun fact: Canada once led the world in fighting monopolies. With the Anti-Combines Act of 1889, we became the first country in the world to enact pro-competition laws, designed to bust monopolies and protect consumers. But, as the saying goes, being first doesn’t always mean being best. The Competition Act, which took effect on June 19, 1986, was an attempt to fix the problems with its predecessor...

Most musicians in North America are afraid to say anything negative about Live Nation/Ticketmaster for fear of retaliation, but not Rollie Pemberton. The Edmonton-born rapper, better known as Cadence Weapon, doesn’t just speak out – he takes action. In 2022, Pemberton started My Merch, a movement against the entertainment giant demanding a cut of artists’ merchandise sales in venues it owned. That...

It wasn’t the result he was hoping for, but Alexander Martin’s defeat in Canada’s competition court was historic nevertheless. Now, he’s ready to talk about it. 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 en...

Airlines, banks, telcos, grocery chains. The economy is three companies in a trench coat. Welcome to The Antidote. Do Not Pass Go, your very own survival guide to our monopolized times. Join me, Peter Nowak, every week as we delve into competition issues, oligopolies, their influence over our lawmakers, affordability, and what it means for you. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To...

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This week we’re celebrating a pair of milestones here at Do Not Pass Go : We’ve officially hit both the six-month and the 1,000-subscriber marks! 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 mu...

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a small business or a large enterprise, having an online presence is a necessity. And while businesses have always had to deal with unfavourable changes to online platforms, these issues are multiplying now that concentration has set in and competition between them has levelled off. Stories of businesses losing access to their social media accounts are increasin...

Of all the places you’d think that Canada would have drawn inspiration from when deciding how to adjudicate its competition problems, Sweden maybe isn’t top of mind. 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...

When it comes to increasing corporate concentration and declining competition, Canada is dealing with a double-barrelled problem. 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. Fortunat...

If there’s one highly concentrated industry that the federal government refuses to fix (perhaps more so than others), it’s airlines. It’s why Canadians pay some of the highest prices to fly and suffer under some of the weakest passenger protections in the world. The government has ignored a major report issued by the Competition Bureau last year that has recommendations on how to improve the probl...

Cineplex isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now. Theatre closures, poor financial results, a fractious relationship with local film makers, plus the possibility of fewer movies coming its way are all making for a murky future for Canada’s pre-dominant theatre chain. But, to borrow from The Lion King , it’s the circle of life. At least it is according to Eric Veillette, arts journalist, th...

Surveillance pricing is getting a lot of attention, and rightfully so – the individualized prices seen online for years, based on what companies such as Amazon and airlines know about their customers, are rapidly making their way into the real world . Also known as dynamic pricing, it’s a problem because it means retailers are increasingly going to be able to charge people differently based on wha...

Thank you Courtney 🇨🇦 , Shirley Figueroa , Laurel Fairchild , Kathy , Matthew Mendelsohn , and many others for tuning into my live video with Dean Blundell ! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

Baseball spring training is here! Hurray! Whether or not you’re a fan, it’s a symbolic reminder that the end of winter is just around the corner. It’s a time of celebration akin to the best pagan renewal rituals. But we’re not here to talk about the pending arrival of spring and sunnier days ahead. We’re here to discuss the problem in Toronto sports in general, and Canadian sports overall. And tha...

Enshittification – it’s a word you’ve doubtlessly heard before, especially if you’ve been reading or listening here. It’s a term that neatly and cheekily encapsulates how everything, from our digital devices and streaming services to real-world retail stores and even health care, have gotten worse. It’s also the title of a new book by Cory Doctorow, the Toronto-born digital rights activist, scienc...

Back in October, former Conservative party leader and Prime Minister candidate Erin O’Toole argued that monopolies and oligopolies aren’t necessarily all bad at a University of Toronto debate on the subject. They were instrumental in building Canada in the first place, and keeping the country free from domination by the United States in its formative years. As the saying goes, everything old is ne...