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How Canada can curb the serial acquisitions quietly reshaping our economy
In many cases, threats to the affordability of everyday goods and services are the byproduct of what competition experts call serial acquisitions—a pattern of larger firms buying up a series of smaller players to try and corner the market. As Michelle Arnold and Kiran Gill explain, a fair and competitive economy does not emerge by accident. The Competition Bureau's proposed Merger Enforcement Guidelines will play an important role in preventing bigger firms from creating unfair playing fields that hurt Canadian small businesses, workers and consumers. The next step for the bureau should be aggressive enforcement of the new guidelines.
From Guidelines to Action: Feedback on the Proposed Merger Enforcement Guidelines
The Competition Bureau's proposed Merger Enforcement Guidelines represent meaningful progress against trends towards corporate consolidation in Canada. In our formal feedback submission to the bureau, Social Capital Partners outlines that we strongly support the new guidelines. However, we believe that the operationalization of these guidelines will be the real test of their impact. Guidance documents shape expectations, but enforcement outcomes shape behaviour. Serial acquirers are sophisticated actors who model regulatory risk into their strategies. To succeed, the bureau must demonstrate visible capacity to track, analyze and challenge roll-up patterns that are driving up prices and sacrificing quality and service in key sectors.
A youth employment supplement could rebalance Canada’s generational divide | Policy Options
Canada is overdue for a broader debate on intergenerational fairness and how our taxes and benefits support—and exclude—different age groups. As Kiran Gill and Matthew Mendelsohn explain in Policy Options, we continue to live with programs designed by baby boomers to provide security to seniors, even if those seniors are well off. Meanwhile, young adults in our country face challenges entering the labour market, securing stable employment and saving to build some measure of economic security in the face of rising costs. They propose a policy designed to make the economy work for younger Canadians—a youth supplement to the existing Canada Workers Benefit. This youth employment supplement—aptly coined a YES!—could help rebuild financial security and allow younger adults to buy homes, finance education for themselves or their children and save for the future.