Canada needs a whole-of-government approach to competition policy: Hunter Prize 2025

The Hub’s third annual Hunter Prize for Public Policy, generously supported by the Hunter Family Foundation, focused on solving Canada’s stagnant living standards and slow productivity growth. A diverse group of ten finalists has been chosen from nearly 250 entries, with the finalists and winners chosen by an esteemed panel of judges, including Theo Argitis, Hon. Lisa Raitt, Frances Donald, Jack Mintz, and Alicia Planincic. The Hub is pleased to run essays from each finalist this week that lay out their plans to help solve this persistent policy problem. For years, Canadian governments have promised to bring down the cost of living, but the associated policy choices are typically a tax cut that returns funds to people’s pockets. The latest iteration comes from Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has vowed to find ways to increase competition in telecom, banking, and retail. But if our ambition begins and ends with “more competition,” we’re missing the point. Competition is not an end in itself; it’s a means to an end. The real goal is an economy where the best ideas, products, and services can flourish, and where prosperity is shared more widely—an economy that is affordable for all Canadians. A thriving economy isn’t built by fixing markets after the fact. It’s about co-creating and shaping them, deliberately, in the public interest. This requires a whole-of-government approach. Competition should no longer be treated as the lonely file of the minister of industry. Promoting and protecting it must be a shared responsibility across the federation. What Canada needs is not just incremental reform but a fundamental reframing: competition policy as economic policy. We’ve recently recognized the need to stitch together fragmented markets inside Canada. The recent push for a “One Canadian Economy” has been about continuing work to erase barriers to interprovincial trade, mobility, and licensing. But the next iteration must be more ambitious. It should be about moving faster, together, and thinking more holistically about how we design and govern markets. Industrial, competition, and trade policies can no longer be pursued in isolation. They need to be harmonized into a cohesive economic strategy that boosts productivity, lowers costs, and strengthens sovereignty. This will mean setting shared national missions around affordability, innovation, and resilience, and aligning policy tools to get there; treating competition not just as a law to enforce, but as a lens through which to evaluate procurement, licensing, tax policy, and even data protection. Too often, we frame the cost of living debate as simply about dollars and cents. But Canadians are also being drained of time and attention by markets that don’t function fairly. Think of the hours spent trying to cancel a subscription that deliberately makes off-ramps difficult. Or the invisible “junk fees” that sneak into airline tickets, delivery apps, and banking. Or the wasted time small businesses spend deciphering opaque digital platform rules just to stay visible on a search page. These are attention costs, time costs, and stress costs. They are hidden taxes on Canadian households and entrepreneurs. Tackling them requires a broader conception of competition policy. Canada tends to focus on redistributing wealth after it has already accumulated, through tax credits, transfers, or rebates. That matters, but it’s not enough. We need to embrace predistribution: Making markets fairer from the start. Predistributive policies disperse wealth more widely upfront, widen access to opportunity, and give workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs more bargaining power. Predistribution is about expanding economic liberty: the freedom for consumers to choose the best products and services; the freedom for workers to use their talents in open markets; the freedom for small businesses to compete on fair terms. That could mean banning non-compete clauses so workers can move freely. It could mean mandating per-unit pricing in grocery stores so families can comparison shop without detective work. It could mean prohibiting landlords from using restrictive covenants to block grocery competitors. These are modest, practical interventions that tilt bargaining power back toward Canadians. When we talk about a whole-of-government competition strategy, skeptics imagine more bureaucracy. But the opposite is true. This is about diffusing power, not hoarding it. Right now, competition is siloed within the Competition Bureau. But ministries of health, transport, agriculture, finance (and others) all wield authority that shapes markets. A whole-of-government approach would obligate these actors to consider competition in their decisions. Canada’s making progress: modernizing the Competition Act, opening telecom networks, banning non-competes, and advancing right-to-repair. But we rarely connect the dots. Without a dedicated competition beat, Canadians miss how these wins add up. To build momentum, we need a clearer story about how competition policy makes life better. Where do we go next? The opportunities are everywhere. A pharmacare strategy that tackles drug pricing and the power of pharmacy benefit managers. Mandatory licensing of certain IP in the public interest. Clawback provisions in subsidies to dominant firms. Investigations into algorithmic collusion in rental and fuel markets. A Canadian “Robinson-Patman Act” to protect suppliers and consumers from abusive pricing practices. While not an easy campaign slogan, these are the nuts and bolts of a policy agenda that restores fairness, widens opportunity, and lowers costs. In other words, it’s the boring but essential work of a functioning and effective government. Mariana Mazzucato has argued that modern industrial strategy should not be about “picking winners” but about picking the willing. Set clear missions—solving the climate crisis, reducing the cost of living, safeguarding democracy—and then shaping markets to deliver. For Canada, Prime Minister Carney’s third of seven priorities is “bringing down costs for Canadians and helping them to get ahead.” Competition policy is the connective tissue of these missions. At its core, this broad agenda is about freedom. Freedom from being locked into loyalty schemes that penalize non-members. Freedom from contracts that can be unilaterally changed by dominant firms. Freedom from opaque pricing algorithms that quietly inflate rent or airfare. Competition is about freedom to operate, for consumers, workers, and businesses alike. And it is about democracy itself. A pluralistic economy, where no single firm dominates, is one where citizens have more real choices and governments retain the capacity to govern in the public interest. Canada has an opportunity to lead by reframing competition as a shared national mission instead of a niche concern. By weaving it into industrial strategy, trade policy, procurement, and provincial legislation, we can build an economy that is more innovative, more affordable, and more fair. Through the embrace of a whole-of-government approach to competition, Canada can deliver on all of these fronts—unlocking prosperity while protecting the freedoms that matter most. Read the policy paper: