Ottawa’s War on Size Is a Gift to Canada’s Global Rivals
Canada’s economy doesn’t labour under the burden of too much economic muscle. It suffers from too little.
In the opening months of 2026, corporate Canada has shown rare signs of momentum. Firms have moved to bulk up, cut costs, and compete in a world where scale often determines who survives. Eldorado Gold’s $3.8-billion bid for Foran Mining and Ricoh Canada’s acquisition of ET Group reflect the same instinct: grow or get left behind on the global stage.
That instinct now runs straight into Ottawa.
With the Competition Bureau’s Feb. 11 deadline for public comment passed, its draft Merger Enforcement Guidelines reveal a sharp turn toward rigid, interventionist enforcement. The Bureau promises lower prices and stronger competition. Instead, it advances a guilty-until-proven-innocent framework that treats size itself as suspect. For a country mired in a productivity slump, this is the wrong fight at the wrong moment.