The hidden takeover of our economy—and 5 things we can do about it

Even before Trump’s tariff and annexation threats, something troubling was happening in our economy—a slow but relentless consolidation of Canada’s industries through serial acquisitions.

Through this strategy, large firms—often U.S.-based—buy up smaller businesses in a fragmented market. Unlike big mergers that trigger regulatory scrutiny, these smaller deals fall below the radar, leading to the accumulation of unchecked market power over time. The result? Rising prices, fewer choices for consumers, deteriorating job quality and entire industries concentrated in fewer hands.

Today, Canada’s main streets are more likely to feature American chains and less likely to be locally owned. According to a recent joint CBC Marketplace and Fifth Estate investigation, before 2010, almost all veterinary clinics in Canada were owned by a vet. Today, more than half of all emergency and specialty animal hospitals and more than 20 per cent of all vet clinics are owned by six corporations. The investigation involved undercover visits to corporately owned clinics that revealed higher-than-average services costs.

And it’s not just vet clinics. Funeral services are becoming monopolized by large corporations, with prices at corporate-owned facilities estimated to be 42% higher than at independent providers. The care economy—including daycares, pharmacies and long-term care homes—is increasingly controlled by PE firms, often at the expense of affordability and service quality.

This isn’t just bad for Canadian consumers—it’s bad for workers. Research shows that higher market concentration reduces wages and hiring, eroding economic mobility. The companies making these acquisitions aren’t investing in innovation or creating or growing new local businesses. They’re amassing market power and extracting as much wealth as possible, leaving fewer opportunities for small businesses to thrive and creating higher barriers for new entrepreneurs.

With the current economic assault on the Canadian economy from the Trump administration, coupled with exchange-rate advantages and low interest rates, this is no doubt a buying opportunity for foreign investors. The risk is that we will come out of this period with even more economic vulnerability and less ownership of our own economy.

We don’t have to accept this creeping consolidation as inevitable. To take back the Canadian economy from this hidden takeover, and stop it from accelerating, governments can make some urgent changes.

1. Amend the Competition Act to put serial acquisitions on the radar

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) should make additional amendments to the Competition Act focused on increasing its capacity to identify mergers. As Social Capital Partners argued in its 2023 submission on competition policy, the merger notification threshold should be significantly lowered and based on transaction value, rather than revenue or assets in Canada. Additionally, we recommend introducing requirements that any acquirer making more than four acquisitions in a 12-month period should be required to file for each subsequent transaction until such time as they do not make four acquisitions in a 12-month period.

2. Call out serial acquisitions in the Merger Enforcement Guidelines

The Competition Bureau should update its Merger Enforcement Guidelines to explicitly identify serial acquisitions as an area of potential concern and indicate that when a merger is part of a series of multiple acquisitions, the bureau may examine the whole series. This effort would send a clear signal that the bureau is dedicated to addressing anti-competitive behaviour in all forms and would ensure that Canadian merger enforcement guidelines are consistent with the U.S. FTC/Department of Justice (DOJ)’s 2023 Merger Guidelines on the topic of serial acquisitions.

3. Gather better data on serial acquisitions

Our Competition Bureau should prioritize proactive information gathering on serial acquisitions in Canada. This might include an open call on the impact of serial acquisitions, market studies in sectors most vulnerable to serial acquisitions and/or new processes for tracking and understanding the impact of PE activity on Canadian economic resilience.

4. Inform the public about mergers in plain language

The Competition Bureau should work to ensure that information and data related to mergers is more accessible to a broad audience. Canadians are more interested in competition policy than ever before. It’s no longer just lawyers and consultants delving into this content, but working Canadians who are concerned with the impact of mergers and acquisitions on their wages, consumer choices and economic well-being. Information in plain language should be available across public communication channels, and the report of merger reviews should be updated to include clear summaries of the proposed mergers and any decisions.

This information should be relevant to investment-attraction offices at all levels of government. As Canada refocuses efforts on building a fair and independent economy that’s less reliant on the U.S., we need to stop measuring investment-attraction success based on total number of dollars, and focus instead on investments that build, versus diminish, economic resilience.

5. Require alerts to changes in business ownership

Provincial/territorial governments and professional regulatory colleges should adopt policies that require regulated professionals, such as veterinarians, to alert their clients of a change in ownership. This would ensure that customers are fully informed on business ownership and would enhance transparency around acquisition trends.

We already face economic assault from the south—we cannot accept unchecked serial acquisitions as a tactic in this economic war against us. These “rollups” of local businesses don’t create jobs and they don’t drive innovation.

If we don’t act now, the price we pay won’t just be higher vet bills, funeral costs or daycare fees—it will be a future with fewer career opportunities, asset-building opportunities and less economic security. The Canadian government must make it a policy priority to prevent American investors from buying up the Canadian economy.