Promotion and advocacy

Advocacy: Promoting the benefits of competition

As part of its mandate, the Bureau participates in a range of activities to promote and advocate for the benefits of a competitive marketplace. More competition can lead to lower prices for consumers, as well as increased choice and greater innovation.

Barriers to competition can be regulations or policies that make it difficult for businesses to emerge or compete, or they can be factors that make it difficult for consumers to switch products or services or make informed choices.

Regulatory advice and interventions

Generally, the Bureau recommends that, as much as possible, regulators rely on market forces to achieve the benefits of competition and resort to regulations only where necessary. When market forces are insufficient, the Bureau provides advice on how to achieve policy objectives in a minimally intrusive way.

In our advocacy role, we may identify barriers to competition and make recommendations to regulators and policy-makers on how to reduce these barriers.

One of the key ways we advocate for competition is by making interventions and providing advice to regulators, industry associations, and self-regulated bodies to assist in satisfying legitimate policy objectives without unnecessarily restricting competition in the Canadian economy. We also provide advice to policy-makers and other stakeholders both in Canada and abroad.

This type of advocacy may take the form of confidential consultations with a regulator, or may be communicated more widely through public letters, market studies, or other publications.

Market studies

The Bureau regularly conducts in-depth examinations of a market, industry, or competition-related topic to identify competition issues and suggest potential solutions while improving our understanding of the competitive dynamics at play.

Further reading