The new head of Canada’s competition watchdog says the strain people feel every time they open their wallets has brought a new sense of urgency to her organization’s work.
About a month into the top job, acting competition commissioner Jeanne Pratt said “keeping our foot on the gas” is her top priority.
“With all of the headwinds in our economy and affordability challenges for consumers, it is more important than ever that we just keep going and that we do everything we can to address issues for consumers and for businesses,” she said in an interview on Thursday.
The Competition Bureau is responsible for policing everything from price-fixing and bid-rigging to deceptive marketing to ensure consumers are protected and the economy benefits from the lower prices and innovation that come with competition.
Pratt, an ex-lawyer-turned-15-year-Competition-Bureau-veteran, rose to the top job on an interim basis when Matthew Boswell stepped down in December.
His reign, which spanned the COVID-19 pandemic and a massive spike in inflation, marked a new, more dogged chapter in bureau history. Under Boswell’s command, the watchdog placed tech behemoths Google and DoorDash in its crosshairs as well as household favourites including Cineplex and Canada’s Wonderland.
Pratt took over as many of those cases are inching through the justice system but also as Canada is in the middle of a trade war and consumers are grappling with price increases that never seem to subside.
To cope, many are shifting to discount grocers or spending more time looking for the biggest bang for their buck.
The bureau has to rise to the occasion, Pratt said.
“Consumers are facing affordability challenges and they need to be able to maximize their ability to do comparison shopping without having to go through a lot of work because that helps consumers, that helps our economy, that helps other competitors who aren’t engaging in this type of practice,” Pratt said.
They also need to be able to trust retailers online, where more people are shopping but also encountering hidden fees, aggressive marketing and new sales tactics — all challenges for the bureau.
“As businesses innovate and use different business models, we have to innovate along with them and make sure we’re keeping up with practices that could harm informed consumer choice,” said Pratt.
One of those practices is drip pricing — when people are drawn into a purchase only to be caught off guard during checkout by unadvertised fees that cause their final total to climb.
It’s become increasingly common with the rise of e-commerce and has been at the heart of several bureau cases in recent years.
The most prominent targeted the country’s theatre giant, Cineplex Inc.
The bureau launched a case against Cineplex in 2023 because it started charging a $1.50 online booking fee in June 2022 to customers not enrolled in its CineClub subscription and Scene Plus loyalty programs, who saw the fee waived and dropped to $1, respectively.
The Competition Bureau argued the fee was mentioned so late in the process that it constituted drip pricing and in 2024, the quasi-judicial Competition Tribunal took its side, leading to a record $38.9 million penalty.
The fine was much higher than others the bureau has levied because changes made in the last few years to the Competition Act fortified drip pricing’s status as a deceptive marketing practice, thus allowing heftier and more nuanced penalties to be issued.
Cineplex fought the ruling, saying it hadn’t misled customers, and took the battle to a court of appeal. The appeal court sided with the bureau last week and though Cineplex had said it will ask the Supreme Court to hear the case, it hasn’t filed any paperwork yet and it’s unclear if the court would agree to consider the appeal.
“I cannot claim to have been a part of their successful journey, but I’m certainly proud of it,” Pratt said Thursday of the bureau’s performance.
If Cineplex follows through with its plan to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case, she said the bureau will continue to defend itself.
She couldn’t tell The Canadian Press whether other drip pricing investigations are underway but said she hopes the Cineplex case sends a message to consumers and businesses alike.
For companies, that message is “you can expect that the penalties, if you engage in this conduct, will be significant.”
For consumers, the message is just as simple: the bureau has your back.
“Consumers should be able to pay the price that is represented to them, so they can make the best-informed choice about where their scarce dollars are going and not have to face fees down the line when they get to the checkout,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2026.
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