IM-Kearney and Johnson_2023_1214.pub

The Competition Bureau itself offered caveats along these lines, observing that the data’s “structure and source do impose some limitations on how [the Bureau] can use it” to make conclusions about the state of competition in Canada and how it has changed over time and that the findings are “not intended to motivate law enforcement activities under the Competition Act.” By extension, caution is wa. [...] Instead of focusing on the overall decrease in concentration in Canadian industries, the report focuses on the most concentrated Canadian industries, which it defines to be industries with HHI greater than 2500, which is the US threshold for declaring an “antitrust market” highly concentrated while assessing mergers. [...] In addition to calling on economists and other academics to examine the Statistics Canada data and augment the findings of the report, we call on the Competition Bureau and, where possible, others to do more regular assessments of the effectiveness of its competition interventions for the economy, including ex post evaluations of specific enforcement actions. [...] Measuring the effects of competition interventions – or the effects of the absence of competition interventions – is a complement to market studies and an under-utilized tool in the Bureau’s toolbox. [...] Elisa Kearney is a partner in the Competition Law and Foreign Investment Review practice of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP and the Chair of the C.