The Government’s Role in Freeing Markets: Challenging Corporate Red Tape

Authors and competition policy experts Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar draw on their new book, , to discuss the dynamic between market freedom, regulatory frameworks, and innovation, and how these elements combine to shape the markets of today and tomorrow. The lecture will be followed by an interview by Nam Kiwanuka, host of TVO’s latest project, The Thread. 

This lecture is free and open to the public. The first 100 attendees will receive a copy of The Big Fix.

We often think of regulatory ‘red tape’ getting in the way of an entrepreneur’s success. But increasingly, the largest companies act as private regulators – controlling the infrastructure of commerce, setting market rules in their favour, and stifling innovation. In the second 2024 McGill Max Bell lecture, Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar emphasise the critical role of the government in ensuring markets remain free and fair, balancing productivity, innovation, job creation, and supporting independent businesses and scale-ups. This conversation will touch on the mixed promise of generative AI and the surprising implications of this new technology for competition.  

This lecture is essential for entrepreneurs, policymakers, academics, and anyone interested in understanding the dynamic between market freedom, regulatory frameworks, and innovation. Join us to discover how these elements combine to shape the markets of today and tomorrow. 

Vass Bednar is the Executive Director of McMaster University's MPP in Digital Society program. Her work focuses on the intersection(s) between public policy and technology. She contributes to policy discussions in Canada through her affiliations as a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a Fellow at the Public Policy Forum (PPF), opinion editorials in the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post, and her popular newsletter "regs to riches." Vass was recently recognized as a Globe and Mail Report on Business “Changemaker” for her work describing Cineplex’s unique monopolization and calling out shady apps on Shopify. She is a graduate of McMaster's Arts & Science program and holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Toronto. She is the host of the Globe and Mail's podcast,.

Denise Hearn is a writer and applied researcher who advises governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits on antitrust, economic policy, and new economic thinking. She is currently a Resident Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, a joint center of Columbia University Law School and Columbia Climate School. Denise co-authored – named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2018. Her writing has been translated into 10 languages and featured in major publications globally. She currently authors the Embodied Economics newsletter. Denise has an MBA from the Oxford Saïd Business School and a BA in International Studies from Baylor University.

The McGill Max Bell Lectures: Economic Ideas for a Stronger Canada is an annual Canada-wide lecture series that focuses each year on an economic policy challenge that impacts the lives of Canadians. This year we turn our attention to competition policy and spotlight writers and competition policy experts Vass Bednar and Denise Hearn who in their book and accompanying lectures help us think about how markets are made and remade, the importance and limitations of present-day competition policy, and the need to reconsider the optimal role of the Canadian state in moderating corporate behaviour.

Can't join us in Montreal? Denise and Vass will be in Vancouver on October 15 and in Toronto on October 29.

Host or Publisher Max Bell School of Public Policy