What Kleenex can teach us about Canadian prosperity

In today’s Big Story Podcast, the brand synonymous with facial tissue is being pulled from the Canadian market, as its manufacturer cites challenges in the space. And Kleenex isn’t the first big-name brand to exit Canada while succeeding in other markets.

When you look deeper at how Canada encourages competition and innovation, you can see threads that go beyond facial tissue, salty snacks or name-brand frozen pizza.

Walid Hejazi is a professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at the Rotman School of Management, and the co-author of Everybody’s Business. He said there are a lot of factors at play, one of which is that we lack competition in parts of our economy.

“One of the big challenges in Canada is because the [telecom, air transportation and finance] sectors are oligopolies, they’re heavily restricted from competition. What ends up happening is the cost, the price that we pay for internet and cell phones, for financial services, for air transportation, they’re all much higher … There’s a bunch of what are called downstream implications, which really impede the ability of companies to operate efficiently,” said Hejazi.

Kleenex’s exit is a good time to examine how Canada regulates and protects foreign and domestic competitors, and whether or not that’s good for us as consumers, or the economy as a whole.

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.