The federal government will take a stronger approach to promoting

competition in the country as Canadians continue to face rising costs, Industry Minister

Mélanie Joly said at the Competition Bureau ’s annual summit in Ottawa on Wednesday. “Let me be clear. The government will be hawkish on competition … because it keeps prices fair, drives innovation and provides Canadians with real choice,” she said. “We’ll continue to strengthen competition in Canadian markets because affordability depends on it.”

Joly said “all parts of the government will be involved” in its efforts to bring costs down and to “create one strong Canadian economy.”

Competition Bureau commissioner Matthew Boswell also called for swift action to improve competition, including breaking down

internal trade barriers and harmonizing regulations across the country. “A fragmented regulatory environment creates unnecessary trade obstacles for business and workers,” he said during his speech. “We cannot build a dynamic economy if businesses are forced to navigate 13 different regulatory regimes in one country.”

The Canadian economy has become “more extractive and less inclusive” in recent years, according to Boswell. Citing a 2025 Statistics Canada study, he said the federal regulatory burden jumped 37 per cent between 2006 and 2021, which was linked to a decline in business dynamism, gross domestic product growth, business-sector investment and employment growth.

Boswell added that “this is not a call to deregulate. We need regulation … but how we regulate is important and has consequences.”

Growing competition in the country also requires policies and programs that empower startups and small businesses, according to business leaders.

Andrew Graham, co-founder and chief executive of Borrowell Inc., a Toronto-based fintech that provides credit scores and loan financing, said Canada needs to first define what it means to build a successful pro-competitive and pro-entrepreneurship economy.

He said policymakers should focus on actions that help Canadian companies get ahead and focus on a range of metrics that includes, but is not limited to, job creation.

“Let’s stop being Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts … and say we’re going to help Canadian companies win and we’re going to send our politicians to go to the opening of a Canadian-headquartered company … (rather than) the opening of an Amazon distribution plant,” he said during a panel discussion at the event.

Graham said non-Canadian companies setting up shop in Canada might create jobs, but “opening an Amazon distribution centre is not the same as a Canadian-headquartered company getting bigger and growing its headquarters and global reach here.”

Canada also needs to widen access to resources for underrepresented groups such as women and immigrant entrepreneurs, said Marwa Abdou, senior research director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who called them the “greatest potential for Canada’s entrepreneurship climate.”

The government must “make room” for more people to contribute to the economy by providing greater access to credit, finance, networks and resources, and giving people the ability to navigate cumbersome tax and regulatory systems, she said during the panel discussion.

Rachel Wasserman, founder and principal at Wasserman Business Law and fellow at the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, said that Canada is “making entrepreneurship a privilege. We do a big disservice to this country by not changing that lens and making it more accessible.”

She also highlighted Canada’s “tsunami” of business succession, citing a 2022 report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, which found that 76 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses will change hands between 2022 and 2032, representing $2 trillion in value.

“Half of that will be sold to third parties. These deals are coming and there’s no one buying these businesses other than asset managers,” she said during the panel. “We are facing … the potential extinction of entrepreneurship in this country if we don’t find a solution to make entrepreneurship easier.”

The simple solution, Wasserman said, is providing debt financing to Canadians who want to acquire those companies.

“One of the fundamental problems here is that … we may have a Rolodex of private-equity firms and who are the competitors that want to buy this up, but we have no infrastructure for finding entrepreneurs who are capable of running these businesses,” she said.

Graham added that it’s not “the easiest time to be an entrepreneur in Canada.”

“No one’s under any illusions,” he said. “If you’re graduating from Waterloo in computer science and you want to start a tech business, there are compelling reasons to do that in California or Texas or New York versus Ontario. We need to be aware that it is a competition. We are competing for those super bright graduates and entrepreneurs … to fix a problem.”

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