Last week, we promised you an epic budget breakdown for this week’s episode.
Well, it turned out that #Budget2022 was surprisingly heavy on innovation policy. So instead of trying to cram it all into one podcast, we’re teasing the important conversations out by topic.
“That kind of gives me a brain boner. I get pretty excited.”
– Vass Bednar,
policy wonk
This week’s topic? Competition! So of course we’re joined by Vass Bednar, Executive Director, Master of Public Policy Program at McMaster University, and author of the excellent Regs to Riches newsletter, to see if Canada will remain three telecom companies in a trenchcoat, or if the suggested revisions to the country’s Competition Act will finally free Matt Boswell.
Bednar is surprisingly optimistic, noting early signals of a ‘whole of government approach’ to competition. Unless, of course, you’re talking about the CRTC and its unwillingness to enforce competition from Canada’s telecommunication companies. And then there’s the sudden emergence of op-eds and deeply reported stories suggesting that perhaps competition is a bad thing – or at least not a primary concern for Canadians.
Perhaps, for example, all Canada’s FinTech companies need from the Big Five banks are their excess profits, rather than open banking. Heresy? A red herring? Or choosing progress over the perfect?
Let’s dig in.
Osler, the leading law firm for startups, high-growth companies, and investors in Canada, has released its inaugural study of 332 anonymized Canadian venture capital and growth equity financings. Read the Deal Points Report: Venture Capital Financings.
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The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Edited by Kattie Laur. Sponsored by Osler and Cisco.