Waves of industry consolidation over the decades have resulted in fewer choices for customers from telecoms to banking, with Canadians paying the world’s most expensive mobile phone bills and forking out more for everyday banking, consumer advocates say.

Now, the government says enough is enough. It wants to put some teeth in its antitrust regulations, much like the far-ranging powers wielded by authorities in the United States, the European Union and Australia.

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As Canada embarks on digitizing its economy, new antitrust laws are needed to avoid the old economic model that created monopolies, according to Denise Hearn, a senior fellow at the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project.

“Canada’s economy has become heavily concentrated in the last decade,” said Hearn, who blames it on the country’s weak competition laws and under-enforcement by the Competition Bureau.

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