Monopoly And Competition In Canada

It is extremely difficult to generalize about the degree of competition in Canadian industry, first, because of the lack of information, and second, because of the vagueness of the concept. So far as information is concerned, the existence of our Combines Investigation machinery has had a two-fold effect; it has made available very detailed studies of the competitive, or non-competi-tive, structure of certain industries which have been subject to investigation; but it has also inhibited, to a considerable extent, the study of market structure by private research workers by increasing the need for secrecy on the part of industry. Lord Keynes, at the end of his Treatise on Money, said of the English banks that they ‘have, until recently, looked on the economic inquirer as though he were the policeman in the pantomime who warns the fellow under arrest that “everything he says will be taken down, altered, and used in evidence against him” ’ In Canada, Canadian industry has a similar distrust of economists combined with a greater need for secrecy. I think that there is some evidence that this distrust is declining, and it would be wrong to over-emphasize this point. One must also recognize that economics is a very young science in Canada, only emerging from ‘colonial’ status about twenty-five years ago, and resources, human and pecuniary, available for research have been very limited. Studies of particular industries are very few indeed.