Canada’s Merger Guidelines: Size on Trial
Canada is on the verge of hard-coding costly mistakes into its merger policy.
The Competition Bureau’s proposed merger guidelines aim to translate Parliament’s recent overhaul of the Competition Act into enforcement practice. The draft instead risks entrenching a merger regime that treats market structure as destiny, discounts consumer-benefiting efficiencies, and substitutes blunt presumptions for evidence of competitive harm. The stakes extend beyond Canada, as jurisdictions worldwide reconsider how aggressively to police mergers.
The guidelines implement statutory changes adopted in 2023 and 2024. Those amendments eliminated Canada’s efficiencies defence, introduced structural presumptions tied to concentration and market share, authorized consideration of labor-market effects, and expanded enforcement authority across the board.
In comments submitted to the bureau this week, scholars at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) identified three features of the draft that should give competition authorities pause.