CANADA Law and Practice Contributed by: Grant McGlaughlin, Sean Stevens and Claire Gowdy, Fasken
petition Tribunal. Previously, private rights of action were limited to refusal to deal, price maintenance and exclusive dealing, tied selling and market restric - tion, and the recent amendments have extended the private rights of action to abuse of dominance, deceptive marketing, greenwashing, civil competitor collaboration and refusal to deal (and right to repair). The amendments also suggest an openness to hear - ing class actions/collective actions in respect of these private rights of action. The takeaway for owners of businesses in Canada is that the limited enforcement risk under the public enforcement regime has been significantly increased due to the availability of private litigation risk on competition law matters. The effects of the reforms to Canada’s Competition Act that came into force in June 2024 on private equity firms are still taking shape. The three key changes included (1) sales “into Canada” (versus just sales “in” or “from”) are now included in calculations of merger notification thresholds, increasing the likelihood of pre-merger notification to the Canadian Competition Bureau (“Bureau”); (2) for non-reportable transactions the look-back period was extended from one to three years, increasing the risk of post-closing scrutiny; and (3) a new structural presumption that transactions are anti-competitive if they result in market shares over 30% or certain concentration levels. Privacy Matters The protection of personal information in Canada is governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and by substantially similar legislation in certain provincial jurisdictions. Canadian organisations may be subject to multiple Canadian privacy laws, as applicable legal privacy requirements depend on factors such as the geographic location of the individuals concerned and of the business related to the information being handled, as well as the place where the information is collected, hosted and pro - cessed. In the past three years, the federal and provincial governments both noted their intention to reform the Canadian privacy legal and regulatory landscape, including a focus on artificial intelligence; however, with the change in federal government, many such initiatives were terminated. Recently, in June 2025, the
Canadian government tabled Bill C-2, which looks to expand lawful access to data and information in the context of border security, and Bill C-8, which is nearly identical to the 2022 (failed) Bill-26 and expected to pass in the coming months, which aims to impose additional cybersecurity requirements on the telecom - munications industry, along with additional oversight by the government. In addition, thus far in 2025, the federal and provincial privacy commissioners have appeared to ramp up guidance, investigations and consultations on a range of topics including, for example, municipalities’ use of high-resolution cam - eras, access to records for deceased individuals, new guidance for “small health organisations”, public dis - closure security breach incidents, video surveillance in company vehicles and facial recognition surveillance in retail stores. 3. Regulatory Framework 3.1 Primary Regulators and Regulatory Issues M&A activity in Canada is governed by federal and provincial corporate statutes, provincial/territorial securities laws and, where applicable, stock exchange rules. The Bureau is responsible for antitrust consid - erations in Canada through the application of the Competition Act, and foreign investment is monitored by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development through the application of the Invest - ment Canada Act (ICA); both are key considerations in private equity-backed transactions. Residency Requirements and Language Laws The federal statute and certain provincial laws (Alber - ta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Lab - rador) impose minimum Canadian residency require - ments for board composition (25% resident Canadian, or at least one board member if the board is composed of fewer than four members), which sometimes influ - ence the jurisdiction in which purchaser companies are formed by foreign private equity investors. The remaining provinces and territories, notably British Columbia, Ontario and Québec, do not have such limi - tations. Businesses operating in Québec must respect the Charter of the French Language, which requires companies to meet French language requirements in
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