Do Not Pass Go by Peter Nowak

Do Not Pass Go by Peter Nowak
  • 5.0 (14)
  • NEWS COMMENTARY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Your very own survival guide for our monopolized times. Do Not Pass Go is a weekly podcast and newsletter from veteran journalist Peter Nowak, reporting on and exposing corporate concentration and monopoly issues in Canada. www.donotpassgo.ca

  1. Six Months and 1,000 Subscribers: Celebrating Do Not Pass Go Milestones!

    3D AGO

    Six Months and 1,000 Subscribers: Celebrating Do Not Pass Go Milestones!

    This week we’re celebrating a pair of milestones here at Do Not Pass Go: We’ve officially hit both the six-month and the 1,000-subscriber marks! Our quick growth tells us there’s a big appetite for what we’re doing here, which is reporting on and elevating the profile of competition, affordability and consumer issues in Canada. That’s great news, because we’re just getting started – there’s so much more to come. Join us on this very special episode of the podcast for a look back at some of the highlights and stats from the past six months, plus a look forward at what’s next. Plus, in between, we’re joined by Vass Bednar, director of the Canadian SHIELD Institute sovereignty think tank, and Arshy Mann, host of The Hatchet podcast and Substack, for a report card on how the “hawkish” Carney government is doing so far on competition issues. Along with Denise Hearn, Vass is the co-author of the 2024 book The Big Fix, while Arshy in 2022/2023 produced Canadaland’s monopoly podcast series, both of which were the inspiration for Do Not Pass Go. What better way to celebrate our milestones than a conversation with grandma and grandpa! Check out the Canadian SHIELD Institute here and The Hatchet here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    34 min
  2. Own Your Future: Why Businesses Can’t Afford to Rely on Online Platforms Anymore

    MAR 30

    Own Your Future: Why Businesses Can’t Afford to Rely on Online Platforms Anymore

    Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a small business or a large enterprise, having an online presence is a necessity. And while businesses have always had to deal with unfavourable changes to online platforms, these issues are multiplying now that concentration has set in and competition between them has levelled off. Stories of businesses losing access to their social media accounts are increasingly popping up. Entire industries have pivoted because of changes to algorithms, only for platform owners to switch them up again on a whim. Some have ceased to exist entirely while others have changed hands and ushered in completely new sets of rules. On top of it all, most of the platforms in question are U.S.-based – a big problem when Canada is pushing toward more sovereignty. In other words, it’s never been a worse time to hitch your online wagon to someone else’s train. Spencer Callaghan is the brand and communications director for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the non-profit organization that sells the dot-ca domain name. He’s self-admittedly biased because of who he works for, but he’s not wrong in advocating for businesses of all sizes to control their own online fate. He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to warn of the dangers of businesses putting too much effort into opaquely run platforms, and to share his advice on how they can own rather than rent their respective online presences. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    36 min
  3. Inside Canada's Competition Court with Its Former Top Judge

    MAR 23

    Inside Canada's Competition Court with Its Former Top Judge

    Of all the places you’d think that Canada would have drawn inspiration from when deciding how to adjudicate its competition problems, Sweden maybe isn’t top of mind. But that’s exactly what lawmakers did back in the 1980s, when they borrowed from the Scandinavian country’s Market Court to create the Competition Tribunal – Canada’s court of first resort when it comes to assessing mergers and abuse of dominance cases. As the name implies, it’s not precisely a court. The Tribunal is indeed made of up judges, but they are often joined by lay members that jointly hear cases as a panel. As per the Swedish approach, the idea has always been to couple real-world economic and market knowledge with legal expertise. Prior to retiring this past October, Paul Crampton served on the federal court for 16 years, with 14 of those as its Chief Justice. His duties included heading the Competition Tribunal, where he presided over some of the biggest and most contentious cases in Canadian history – including perhaps the biggest and most contentious, the Rogers-Shaw merger in 2023. He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast this week to discuss how recent, badly needed updates to Canada’s competition laws are likely to affect future Tribunal cases – and, of course, we talk about that Rogers-Shaw case. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    37 min
  4. How Employee-Owned Companies are Pushing Back Against Monopolies

    MAR 16

    How Employee-Owned Companies are Pushing Back Against Monopolies

    When it comes to increasing corporate concentration and declining competition, Canada is dealing with a double-barrelled problem. On the one hand, big companies are continuing to snap up competitors. On the other, less visible serial acquirers – often private equity firms – are rolling up entire categories of businesses, from dental clinics and veterinarians to laundromats and car washes. Fortunately, a new counter-force has begun to emerge: employee-owned trusts (EOTs). Enabled by legislation that came into force in 2024, these new structures allow rank-and-file employees to buy the companies they work for, providing a different option for owners who want to retire or otherwise exit their businesses. It’s an exceptionally timely development – not just because EOTs are providing an alternative to further concentration, but also because of the nation’s looming succession crisis and a growing desire to keep local companies in Canadian hands. Jon Shell, chair of Social Capital Partners and Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project board member, is perhaps the biggest proponent of EOTs in the country. He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to explain their upsides and downsides, and to warn that employee-owned trusts are at risk if the government doesn’t take immediate action on the tax incentives that make them appealing. Learn more about employee-owned trusts here. Read the letter signed by notable business leaders to the federal government here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    33 min
  5. Canada's One-Man Air Force – and His Calculated Crusade Against Airlines

    MAR 9

    Canada's One-Man Air Force – and His Calculated Crusade Against Airlines

    If there’s one highly concentrated industry that the federal government refuses to fix (perhaps more so than others), it’s airlines. It’s why Canadians pay some of the highest prices to fly and suffer under some of the weakest passenger protections in the world. The government has ignored a major report issued by the Competition Bureau last year that has recommendations on how to improve the problems. The passenger complaint backlog sits at close to 100,000, with each individual issue taking years to resolve. Worse still, according to a CBC Go Public investigation published in January, the feds are actively delaying making airlines pay for the complaints system. With such inaction and even complicity by officials, other resistance emerges. Enter Gabor Lukacs. For nearly 20 years, this one name has been striking fear into airlines by becoming synonymous with air passenger rights – in fact, Air Passenger Rights is his group, which has more than 274,000 members on Facebook. Lukacs has fought – and won – dozens of court battles with the airlines, getting passengers justice and the money they’re owed in the process. He’s a fixture in virtually every news report on airline misdeeds, which is to say he’s on TV a lot. He’s the nation’s veritable avatar of passenger anger. But who is Gabor Lukacs? Why has he taken up this crusade? What drives him? A child math prodigy, Lukacs escaped an abusive mother in Hungary when he was just eight years old and ended up doing a PhD in Canada at just 16. He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to share his amazing story and how it – and his love of math – fuels his crusade for the justice that the government refuses to deliver. For more, check out airpassengerrights.ca. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    33 min
  6. Why Cineplex’s Struggles Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to Movie Lovers

    MAR 2

    Why Cineplex’s Struggles Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to Movie Lovers

    Cineplex isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now. Theatre closures, poor financial results, a fractious relationship with local film makers, plus the possibility of fewer movies coming its way are all making for a murky future for Canada’s pre-dominant theatre chain. But, to borrow from The Lion King, it’s the circle of life. At least it is according to Eric Veillette, arts journalist, theatre historian and former head programmer of the independent Revue Cinema in Toronto. Movie fans don’t need to worry much, he says, because theatres aren’t necessarily going anywhere. The days of BIG theatres, however, may be numbered – the next few years are likely to bring a market correction, and with it, consolidation and shrinking of the large chains in Canada and elsewhere. But just as cavemen (and cave ladies!) gathered in front of the fire to watch shadow-puppet stories, peoples’ need to experience stories communally is as strong as ever, especially at a time when so many of them are being fed to screens by faceless algorithms. Veillette joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to reveal the often shady and competitively-fraught history of movie-going in Canada, and to discuss why its future is going to be smaller and more indie. Check out his Substack, The Downtown Theatre, and keep an eye out for his book, “In the Dark: A Select History of Movie-Going in Toronto,” coming from ECW Press in 2027. And check out our feature episode the Revue Cinema here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    40 min
  7. Jim Balsillie Throws Down the Gauntlet: Will Ottawa Protect Canadians From Price Hikes?

    FEB 23

    Jim Balsillie Throws Down the Gauntlet: Will Ottawa Protect Canadians From Price Hikes?

    Surveillance pricing is getting a lot of attention, and rightfully so – the individualized prices seen online for years, based on what companies such as Amazon and airlines know about their customers, are rapidly making their way into the real world. Also known as dynamic pricing, it’s a problem because it means retailers are increasingly going to be able to charge people differently based on what they know about the person and their ability to pay, rather than on traditional supply-and-demand economics and competitive factors. The driver of it all is poor privacy protection. Canada, with its lax laws, is especially vulnerable, according to Jim Balsillie, who needs little introduction. Balsillie was the co-chief executive of Research In Motion, otherwise known as BlackBerry – the tiny startup from Waterloo, Ont. that ignited the smartphone revolution in the early-2000s and became the most valuable company in Canada for a time. Apple and Google ultimately ate up the smartphone market, but Balsillie has continued to be a prominent voice in Canadian business and policy. He has started several think tanks and advocacy groups, including the Canadian Council of Innovators and the Canadian SHIELD Institute. And he continues to argue for stronger laws and policies that protection Canadian businesses and consumers. In a new Globe and Mail opinion piece, he takes aim at surveillance pricing and privacy and how it is contributing to Canada’s cost-of-living crisis. He joins Do Not Pass Go this week to lay down the gauntlet on Canada’s political parties – he wants them to declare whether they’re really on the public’s side when it comes to privacy and affordability or whether they’re all about their own self-interests. Check out his Globe and Mail opinion piece here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    32 min
  8. Live with Peter Nowak:

    FEB 18

    Live with Peter Nowak:

    Thank you Courtney 🇨🇦, Shirley Figueroa, Laurel Fairchild, Kathy, Matthew Mendelsohn, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dean Blundell! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    26 min
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5
out of 5
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About

Your very own survival guide for our monopolized times. Do Not Pass Go is a weekly podcast and newsletter from veteran journalist Peter Nowak, reporting on and exposing corporate concentration and monopoly issues in Canada. www.donotpassgo.ca

Information

  • Creator
    Do Not Pass Go by Peter Nowak
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    32
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Peter Nowak
  • Show Website
    Do Not Pass Go by Peter Nowak

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