Competition Bureau says rivalry boosts trade resilience

Competition Bureau acting commissioner Jeanne Pratt said Oct. 12 that a competitive domestic market makes Canada’s economy stronger as trade tensions with the United States worsen, rejecting the idea that antitrust enforcement and global competitiveness pull in opposite directions.

“They’re not in conflict,” Pratt told The Canadian Press, calling competition “a crucial lever” in the current climate. She said competition pushes companies to invest, innovate, cut prices and improve efficiency, and that the Bureau’s co-operation with U.S. counterparts has not changed.

The comments come after Canada-U.S. trade talks faltered in August, followed by new tariffs and countermeasures. Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to diversify Canada’s trading partners and pitch the country to global investors as a safe place to put money, according to the Canadian Press report. The Bureau, an independent federal agency, publishes its decisions and statements on its website.

Pratt drew a line between companies that need scale to compete abroad and those that wield market power at the expense of Canadians. “To be frank, we view competition as a complement to international competitiveness,” she said.

That argument matters for a reason beyond the trade file. Larger Canadian companies, and some in government, have at times argued that mergers are needed to build national champions able to stand up to U.S. rivals. Pratt’s position is the opposite: a market with real rivals, she said, is what attracts investment in the first place.

Robin Shaban, chair of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, agreed that competition and foreign investment are linked. She pointed to telecom, where a fourth national wireless player never fully emerged after the Harper government pushed for one about a decade ago. Shaban also said the link may matter less for public infrastructure projects.

She added that Canadian and U.S. antitrust agencies, which have long worked together on cross-border mergers, now show growing divergence in enforcement under U.S. President Donald Trump, which creates uncertainty for companies planning deals.

The clearest recent test of the Bureau’s approach is in the grocery aisle. On Oct. 6, Nortera Foods and U.S.-based B&G Foods called off a deal under which Nortera would have bought the Green Giant and Le Sueur canned and frozen vegetable business in Canada, about a month after the Bureau moved to stop it.

In August, the Bureau asked the Competition Tribunal to block the sale. It said Nortera is already Canada’s dominant processor of certain canned and frozen vegetables, including products sold under the Del Monte and Arctic Gardens brands, and that the deal would combine it with its only major national brand competitor in an already highly concentrated market. After the deal collapsed, the Bureau said it was pleased that a merger it found likely to bring higher prices and fewer choices will not proceed.

B&G Foods chief executive Robert Mills said the company was disappointed the deal was not completed in time and remains confident in the future of Green Giant Canada, according to Food Dive. The agreement allowed either side to walk away if Canadian regulatory approval was not in hand by Sept. 24, 2026. B&G said it will keep exploring options, including a sale or partnership, and Nortera will remain the brand’s main co-manufacturer.

The Nortera case follows the Bureau’s Sept. 22 consent agreement with Empire Co., the owner of Sobeys, barring the grocer from blocking rivals from opening near its stores. Taken together, the actions show a Bureau focused on food and grocery concentration at a time when Canadians are watching what they pay at the till.

Several questions remain open. Neither the Bureau nor the companies have said whether a different buyer could draw the same objections, and the Bureau has not said how it will weigh trade-driven arguments for scale in future merger reviews. Pratt is also acting, not permanent, in the role, so the long-term direction depends in part on who is named to lead the Bureau.

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Via The Canadian Press (original report). Additional sources: Global News, Food Dive.