On today's show, we are joined by Bay of Quinte MP Ryan Williams, who is also the Critic for Competition for the Official Opposition, to discuss why Canada is losing its competitive edge and why we need to have more competition.
00:00:00.000Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint.
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00:00:15.220We ask that you like, comment, subscribe and share this program because on today's show we are talking about everybody's favorite topic, competition and how Canada is getting less competitive.
00:00:24.860We bring on Mr. Competition himself, the one and only Bay of Quinty, Ryan Williams, Member of Parliament.
00:00:32.060He's also the critic for competition for the official opposition. Thanks for coming on.
00:00:36.680Well, as you had a video, you put it out on social media not too long ago, you kind of painted a very broad picture of how Canada is getting less competitive,
00:00:46.420more so under this government, but also leading up to it over the last few decades, how big companies are actually swallowing up the smaller ones.
00:00:55.140That's right. We talk about what we call Canada's monopoly problem.
00:02:21.360Wages don't go up as fast because there is no real alternatives.
00:02:25.800Why would a company want to come out strong with a great new product when they have the market share and they don't have to innovate that much?
00:02:33.200No, and I think that's the premise of the whole video is that monopolies and oligopolies are dangerous.
00:02:39.380So with no one else to go to, they set the price.
00:02:41.960And I liken it back and I talk back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which talked about something called the invisible hand.
00:02:47.980And the visible hand was many buyers and many sellers that negotiate price.
00:02:52.520So when you have many options to choose from and you're a supplier, you're selling a good or a widget, you're going to make sure you have the best product and the best service in order to get your money.
00:03:02.440But if you don't have competitors, if you own the market, well, you're just going to say, you're going to pay what I charge and you're going to get the service I give you.
00:03:12.240And how often are all of us used to that when we call to try to change cell phone plans, right?
00:03:18.620Or if we try to go to a bank and switch a bank, 80% of Canadians have never switched their bank, right?
00:03:24.560When you look at almost everything in Canada, even we talk about grocery stores and the fact that there's really only three, five, two American with three Canadian grocery stores that you go to.
00:03:36.380And all their sub-brands are owned by those grocery stores.
00:03:38.620Cell phone companies, there's only three cell phone companies, but there's about 20 different sub-cell phone brands.
00:03:43.920Most Canadians don't even know if they go get Fido, it's owned by Rogers.
00:03:47.700If they go get a Virgin, it's owned by Bell.
00:03:49.420So, you know, it's the lack of choice to Canadians and having this protected market that hurts Canadians in their pocket butts, but it also hurts Canadians far, far greater than that.
00:04:00.740It's wages, it's going to be wealth inequality.
00:04:03.560It's the fact that we just don't have, even what I said in this video, a capitalist market anymore.
00:04:09.140If you don't have free choice in the invisible hand with many buyers, many sellers, this isn't capitalism.
00:04:14.600It's not a free market where you can buy and sell things at will.
00:04:18.520It's really a different form of that, and it's hurting Canada.
00:04:22.620So, as these companies get bigger, they take over the smaller players and they just swallow up more and more until you have, you know, three or four.
00:04:32.360They almost act like a massive government agency, right?
00:04:35.800When government evolves in the marketplace, it inviscerates its competition, right?
00:04:39.460Because you can't compete against government.
00:04:41.060Same kind of thing that's happening here.
00:04:42.820They're just gobbling up the smaller players.
00:04:45.320So, in small towns that you live in, that I live in, and it could be in a big city too, you crush that innovative spirit of the entrepreneurs that want to start up because the obstacles are just too high.
00:04:58.640Yes, and it's our fault because our government regulates and over-regulates these industries.
00:05:02.900So, if you want to start a cell phone company, James Wells' cell phone or telco, you need about $6 billion to get into that market.
00:05:13.600You know, the biggest competition we can bring to banking is open banking, which is new financial tech corporations who would provide a service, but this government's stalled for six years in regulation.
00:05:38.900And what's happened with these grocery stores is they've cornered the real estate markets.
00:05:43.040So, they own not only the real estate where the grocery stores are now, they own the real estate where grocery stores are going to be, where neighborhoods will be built.
00:05:49.080They're very shrewd this way, but that's, again, a control they have because of their power, which limits competitors entering that market.
00:05:57.120And that is what kills competition in Canada.
00:06:00.100And to your point, small companies being bought by big players, but also big players merging with one another.
00:06:06.300We had three main mergers that have happened in the last three years.
00:06:11.920I was on a committee the other day against Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, because the NDP always talk about being against greedflation, they call it, the big corporate oligarchs, which they are.
00:06:23.740But at the same time, didn't stand up and end this government, which they could have, when Rogers merged with Shaw, when WestJet merged with Sunwing, or they bought Sunwing, and when RBC merged with HSBC.
00:06:53.920They made a billion dollars more from January to the end of March than they did the quarter before they bought HSBC, which only made $300 million the last quarter of 2023.
00:07:02.560So what's happened is, yes, besides the NDP being shown to be hypocrites and sellouts to Canadians, which they are, and Jagmeet Singh is, because, you know, to stand up and say we're against corporate giants, but then not to stand up against their mergers.
00:07:17.780But number two, the fact that this government continues to support mergers and not create competition, although they brought, they say, all this legislation that's going to stop it in the future.
00:07:27.360You know, no, we have not had a government create competition for Canadians in a very, very long time.
00:07:33.120Well, that's where I see the NDP, right?
00:07:35.240I think in their minds, they are thinking, if we just tax these companies more, we don't care how big they get.
00:07:42.060We'll just make sure that we just keep taxing them, right?
00:07:45.500Which, if you're a big company, it's somewhat okay, right?
00:08:07.800We have the highest grocery prices we've had in a whole history of this country.
00:08:12.080But that's an example of a tax, and it gets added on the more we have monopolies.
00:08:16.220And then you see how insane this carbon tax is on top of the fact that we have major oligopolies and monopolies in this country.
00:08:22.660Yeah, so the NDP, their formula doesn't work, right?
00:08:26.820It's just that socialist mindset, right?
00:08:29.400Like the politicians and bureaucrats, so the unproductive managing the productive, right?
00:08:35.200And soon those productive people start to get fed up.
00:08:37.560And you need a three-legged stool to grow competition, right?
00:08:40.200And the NDP, so, you know, the NDP will go out and say they need competition.
00:08:43.480We were just today talking about Jagmeet Singh's private member's bill on competition.
00:08:47.380But they only know one side of competition, which is changing a couple things in the act, which really stole my efficiency's defense private member's bill, which was stolen last summer.
00:09:09.500But the three legs of the school, and this is why they fall over and they fall left on their one-legged stool, is you also need competition, which means a free market of new competitors.
00:09:32.480You make companies be innovative by making sure there's good competition, but also a nation that develops research and development that also allows small and medium companies to commercialize that.
00:09:43.420And that's something we really are terrible at in Canada as well.
00:09:46.620So it's competition, innovation, and regulation as a whole.
00:09:52.960It means that we're lessening red tape for those companies that want to enter a market.
00:09:57.520And, yes, we are restricting the power of monopolies, so ensuring they can't merge with one another, that they're restricted in really buying every small company that they want, which means we're giving more power to the Competition Bureau, who is really the police force for competition in Canada, who right now still reside within the government, within ISED.
00:10:16.880So we're going to have a few clips in just a second, but talk about the innovation part as well.
00:10:22.960What this government is doing with a number of sectors, they are inserting themselves into the marketplace.
00:10:29.260This is the other pillar that they're going to, right?
00:10:31.240They are forcing companies to apply for funding, and in some cases get that funding, based on the ideology of the government at the time, right?
00:10:41.720They have a view on how the world or the Canada should be shaped, and anyone that conforms to that view applies for funding and could be awarded that.
00:10:48.660So you actually get government innovation, not exactly innovation that benefits the consumer.
00:11:01.380No, and to your point, the government decided, yes, that of all the things in Canada, besides a free market, we're going to decide that EV manufacturing is very important.
00:11:11.120But we're not letting the market dictate it.