Do Not Pass Go with Peter Nowak

Do Not Pass Go with Peter Nowak
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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. 1d ago

    Inside StubHub's World Cup Scandals

    The World Cup is over and we have a winner: after an exciting and drama-filled tournament, Spain has been crowned the ultimate champion. But there’s also a loser – and that is clearly StubHub. The biggest name in ticket resale had issues before the World Cup, but the company is emerging from the event beset by problems of its own making. Texas and British Columbia are investigating StubHub for selling tickets that didn’t exist, consumers have filed class-action lawsuits in New York and Vancouver over the same reasons, and Ontario has added the company to its Consumer Beware List. Perhaps the most serious problem is the revelation that StubHub chief executive Eric Baker also runs a mass scalping side hustle through the website. Many of the stories over the past few months, including the Baker bombshell, were turned up by CBC News investigative reporter Dave Seglins. His interest in the mess that is the ticketing business goes back nearly a decade further to a hidden camera investigation of a scalper convention in Las Vegas, where he and his colleagues caught Ticketmaster representatives not only encouraging mass resellers to use their platform, but recruiting them to do so. That story figured into the recent U.S. antitrust case against Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation, just as Seglins’ latest coverage has sparked the various government probes and lawsuits against StubHub. No other journalist in Canada has covered this field as closely or with as much impact. In this episode, Seglins joins Do Not Pass Go to take us behind the scenes of the ticketing business, and to discuss why concerts and sporting events are deserving of serious attention from policy makers. Check out the story on Eric Baker here, and the 2018 scalper convention investigation here. And here is the interview with Live Nation executive Dan Wall referred to in this episode. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Inside StubHub's World Cup Scandals

  2. Jul 14

    What Every Pet Owner Should Know About Rising Vet Bills

    If you’ve got a pet in your household - and half of all Canadian households have at least one - this podcast episode is for you. We’re talking about how consolidation in the veterinary industry is rapidly driving up prices, and what’s being done about it. A CBC investigation last year found that before 2010, almost all veterinary clinics in Canada were owned by the vets themselves. Fast forward to the present and more than half of emergency and specialty hospitals and more than 20 per cent of all clinics are owned by just six corporations. As is the case with virtually every industry where consolidation is occurring, prices are going up – and dramatically so in this case. A survey of pet owners last year by Gallup and PetSmart Charities of Canada found that more than half of respondents had declined recommended veterinary care or skipped a visit, with two-thirds citing cost as the reason. Having to pay sky-high fees to get pets healthy, or worse, not being able to afford the cost of doing so, is often devastating to families. The rolling up of the industry is getting a lot of attention as a result and it’s inevitable that regulators and governments are going to start investigating. Maybe some will take action. But in the meantime, some of those still independent vets are trying to disrupt this norm. Emma Harris is the chief executive and, along with Dr. Brendon Laing, the co-founder of Novel, a new vet clinic that opened last year in Burlington, Ont. As the name implies, they’re trying to do the vet business a bit differently, driven largely by the desire to make sure that pet care is affordable so that families don’t have to make that terrible decision of foregoing treatment with their fur babies. Harris is also finishing up her PhD at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, where her thesis delves into the growing overlap of vet care and big business. She’s the perfect person to talk about how private equity is driving up the cost of pet care but also investing in necessary advancements, and how disruption and better clinics may be the best counter to industry consolidation. Check out Novel here and a Globe and Mail feature on the clinic here. CORRECTION: A previous version of the show notes for this episode referred to Dr. Laing as Ms. Harris’ husband. They are not, in fact, married. We regret the error. An audio clarification will be made in the next episode. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    What Every Pet Owner Should Know About Rising Vet Bills

  3. Jul 7

    Video Game Layoffs Fuelling Historic Union Movement

    In December last year, Ubisoft Halifax employees voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a union – 74 per cent said yes. Just a few weeks later, the French company shut the studio down and laid off everyone. Legal action followed, which the two sides settled in April, only for Ubisoft to then close its Winnipeg studio in June, laying off a further 65 employees. Those layoffs – more than 45,000 globally since 2022, with 8,200 so far this year including Microsoft’s news this week of an additional 3,200 Xbox cuts – are what’s driving the unionization push, not just at Ubisoft but across the industry. Employees at U.S. studios owned by Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax Media and Sega of America have all unionized recently. Last year, workers in the United States and Canada partnered with the Communications Workers of America to announce the United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433, marking the historic launch of an industry-wide labour movement. In this episode, Ubisoft Halifax lead programmer and union leader Jon Huffman takes us behind the scenes of the studio’s move to get organized, and he explains how consolidation and financialization are forcing workers across the industry to finally fight back. Check out Huffman’s new independent games studio, Phantom Rowboat. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Video Game Layoffs Fuelling Historic Union Movement

  4. Jun 30

    Food, Rent and Anxiety: Marit Stiles Says Ontarians Are At a Breaking Point

    The NDP took a drubbing in the last federal election, suffering its worst defeat in history. The party lost 17 seats, with its share of the popular vote falling by two-thirds to just 6.3 per cent. Some of that was because many Canadians got spooked by Donald Trump’s 51st state rhetoric, so they rallied behind the Liberal party to prevent a Conservative win. But part of it was also because, as many within the NDP openly admitted, the party had lost its way - it was no longer representing the interests of regular Canadians. At the same time, in Manitoba, premier Wab Kinew has been enjoying some pretty significant support. He’s regularly showing up as the most popular premier in the country in polls, an obvious beacon of success for the NDP in Canada. That popularity is the result of his tackling the issue that is top of mind for the vast majority Canadians: affordability. Since taking office in 2023, Kinew’s government has passed a raft of pro-consumer and anti-monopoly legislation. From taking on grocery chains and the restrictive land contracts that prevent competition, to banning surveillance pricing and giving farmers the ability to repair their own tractors, the province been on a mission to counter the effects of market concentration. The federal party and Kinew’s counterparts in the other provinces have not only taken notice, but they’re adopting the same playbook. This past spring in Winnipeg, Avi Lewis won the federal NDP leadership and has since adopted many of the same positions on a national level. He’s in favour of municipally run grocery stores, a total ban on surveillance pricing, and publicly owned telecom providers, among other measures. In Ontario, Stiles is pushing a similar agenda. Her party has introduced bills on right to repair, cutting taxes on groceries and the establishment of programs to cut energy bills. She joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast for a wide-ranging discussion on how the NDP is tying a hoped-for rebound to a focus on competition and affordability issues. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Food, Rent and Anxiety: Marit Stiles Says Ontarians Are At a Breaking Point

  5. Jun 23

    Is Click To Cancel Finally on Canada's Radar?

    Want to cancel your phone or internet service? Better carve out a serious chunk of time for calling in to plead and argue with a customer agent. The irony is that same service might have taken only seconds to sign up for online in the first place. And it’s not just telecom, it’s widespread. Satellite radio, gym memberships, newspaper subscriptions – there are no shortages of businesses in Canada that purposely make it delightfully easy for customers to come on board, but dreadfully difficult to leave. As usual, Canada is lagging while other countries are moving to protect consumers from such predatory tactics. Fortunately, there’s a bright spot on the horizon, as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission recently announced new regulations that will force telecom providers to make it easy for customers to change or cancel their services online without having to call in to speak with an agent. These so-called “click-to-cancel” rules are the first federal effort to address the scourge of consumer lock-in, but they aren’t coming into effect until April 2027 and they only apply to telecom companies. Tahira Dawood, acting director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre consumer rights group, joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to discuss why Canada is so behind and why click-to-cancel rules are broadly needed throughout the economy. Check out the Competition Bureau’s recent paper on dark patterns here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Is Click To Cancel Finally on Canada's Radar?

  6. Jun 16

    How Lobbyists are Neutering Surveillance Pricing Bans

    Surveillance pricing is firmly in the public crosshairs, with the federal government this week introducing legislation to govern the controversial practice. Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, promises to ensure that Canadians’ “personal information is used responsibly, transparently and for appropriate purposes, including to address unfair uses of personal information such as inappropriate surveillance pricing.” With more than 80 per cent of Canadians wanting a ban or strict regulations on surveillance pricing – where prices for goods and services are individualized based on the data that sellers have about buyers – the government’s move is timely and follows similar action in Manitoba. But unlike the province’s ban, which was passed in April, critics are already warning that the proposed federal rules don’t go far enough and lack specifics. The legislation appears to leave room for market segmentation and the preservation of merchants’ ability to offer discounts, which, as we’ll hear in this podcast episode, are hallmarks of a possible slippery slope. Alec Opperman is a producer and strategist with More Perfect Union, an Emmy-award winning non-profit journalism project in the U.S. He recently produced a video on how surveillance pricing laws are getting watered down and neutered by lobbyists in the United States. He joins Do Not Pass Go to discuss these cautionary tales, and to highlight the warning signs of supposed bans that are anything but. Check out More Perfect Union’s video here. The Chamber of Progress, mentioned in this episode, has critiques of surveillance pricing laws – such as those Maryland tried to enact – on its website. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    How Lobbyists are Neutering Surveillance Pricing Bans

  7. Jun 9

    The Luxury of Economic Dissent

    One question we often ask in these parts is what can the average person do about monopolies and oligopolies? The answers vary depending on the situation, ranging from boycotts of products and services to shareholder activism and even political action. But with so many Canadians struggling just to make ends meet – when many are working multiple jobs and have precious little time or energy to devote to anything other than the basic necessities of life – the better question might be: Who can do something about monopolies and oligopolies? It’s known as “demographic availability,” or the privilege of protest – where only a certain well-resourced group of people are able to take action, whatever form it takes. It’s an ironic situation because it means that those who are most affected by economic concentration are often the least able to resist it directly, which gives rise to the question: Does that put more of the onus to do so on those with more resources and discretionary time? Stephen Gasteyer is an associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University who has written about activism and demographic availability. He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to discuss the privilege of protest, the different forms of economic resistance and whether society’s more resourced members have a heightened responsibility to engage in it. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    The Luxury of Economic Dissent

  8. Jun 2

    When Algorithms Set the Price: The Future of Consumer Deception

    Many of us see supposed discounts every day – products in flyers or on websites where the “regular” price is crossed out and replaced by a supposed sale price: a vacuum that is normally $599 is now $499, or a pair of pants that usually sells for $99, now only $49! Sometimes the deals are legitimate, but often they’re fake discounts meant to mislead consumers into thinking they’re getting a bargain. These fake discounts aren’t just marketing gimmicks, they’re illegal – running afoul of Canada’s “ordinary selling price” laws, which require listed regular prices to be legitimate. Products must genuinely be sold at the regular price for either a certain length of time or a specified volume of overall sales. The laws are meant to protect consumers from deceptive advertising and to keep merchants honest, but they’re routinely violated because the practice works. Psychological studies show that the promise of a bargain, real or not, makes people more likely to buy what’s being offered. The practice is already difficult enough for enforcers to detect and stop, so what happens when algorithms and artificial intelligence are added to the equation? What constitutes an “ordinary selling price” and a discount when dynamic pricing means costs for products and services can change every few seconds? These are questions raised in a new paper by Matthew Chiasson, a senior policy advisor for the Competition Bureau, who believes it’s the first attempt to address the issue in an academic context. Chiasson previously appeared on the Do Not Pass Go podcast to discuss how large companies were weaponizing regulations to stifle competition. He joins us again to talk about what’s a real discount in a world where the price of everything is increasingly fluid. Check out his paper here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    When Algorithms Set the Price: The Future of Consumer Deception
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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

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