The Politech Report

When you hear the word monopoly, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Perhaps Monopoly the game. Perhaps you think of these giant companies that seem untouchable. Whether or not you know the definition of the word is irrelevant for this article, as there is so much more than taking it at face value. Together, we will delve into not only the definition, but also the types of monopolies and examples that you should know.

WHAT IS IT?

A monopoly arises when a company or person has exclusive or near-exclusive control of a market, thereby becoming the only large producer and seller of their product or service.
If the government doesn’t intervene, a monopoly can set its prices to have the highest returns possible, as they control the whole market.

This does not only impact consumers, but also workers. Since there is no competition, companies can drive salaries into the ground with little to no problems. This is when government intervention is needed.

THE TYPES OF MONOPOLIES

There are many different forms that a monopoly can take. Some of them are,

• Natural Monopoly:
  This happens when a single company or firm can provide a lower cost of service than all other companies in the same sector, creating a nearly impossible route into the market.
  
• Government Monopoly
  This is a monopoly owned by the government, hence the name. This can range from issues such as public transportation and postal services across the country to public utilities. This is used to ensure essential services remain accessible and affordable to everyone.
  
• Technology Monopoly
  A company owns or has created a technology that dominates the entire market. A perfect example of this would be Google, as they were deemed to own over 90% of the global search engine market.
  
• Geographic Monopoly
  A company is dominant in a specific geographic location. A Canadian example would be BC Hydro. This is not only a geographic monopoly, but also a natural and government monopoly.
  

EXAMPLES OF MONOPOLIES

If you look at the top businesses in the world, you will find many monopolies, whether that is NVIDIA, Amazon or Alphabet.

Looking back in history, we see a unique example. This was the monopoly over US sugar. Owned by the American Sugar Refining Company, they held a staggering 98% of the total market and were actually taken to court against the US government. Funnily enough, the court ruled that they were not a monopoly, which begs the question of how much influence that they really had.

Just because you see the word monopoly doesn’t mean that these companies are immediately breaking the law and require immediate government intervention. In Canada and many other places in the world, monopolies are legal as long as they act within the Country’s act related to free trade. In Canada, this is named the Competition Act.

Hopefully, from reading this, you have learnt something new.
If you are further interested, I urge you to research further into it, as the history of monopolies is very closely intertwined with politics, and that still hasn’t changed. You will not be disappointed by going down this rabbit hole.

Over the last few years, I am sure that you have heard the words “machine learning” thrown around whenever AI, or any topic related to AI was brought up. Although on a deep level this can get extremely complicated, I am here to break down the key elements of the topic so that you won’t be left in the dark when this and other words like it are brought up.

WHAT IS IT

Contrary to what you may currently believe, machine learning is not artificial intelligence, but rather a subset of it.

Machine learning allows a computer system to learn from tasks without being explicitly programmed to do so.

Once trained, the model moves on by itself without real outside assistance.
This is very different from how traditional coding worked, with the program repeating the same process each time, and if better performance was needed, the code would have to be revisited.

HOW IT ACTUALLY WORKS

The process of how machine learning works at a glance is surprisingly straightforward. The model is given multiple datasets containing images, or data points to train on, and through these images, it picks up on various patterns and then makes informed decisions later based on these patterns.

The simplest example of this could be something like an AI designed to decipher whether there is a dog in an image or not.
To start, the model would be given thousands, if not tens of thousands, of images. Through these, it would pick up patterns about what a dog should look like. Note that these patterns won’t necessarily always be the same as what we agree on. If all the pictures with dogs were in fields, the AI would assign pictures with a green background to be dogs.
This is something that we can clearly see is not true without thinking twice, but for the program, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to properly find these flaws, as it does not have a concept of what a dog really is.

TYPES OF MACHINE LEARNING

There are three main types of machine learning,

• Unsupervised learning
• Supervised learning
• Reinforcement learning

The example I gave above about the dog was an example of Supervised learning. Giving a set of labelled data and allowing the model to identify patterns so that it can make predictions on new data.

If the datasets were not labelled right and wrong, with the AI meant to group them using patterns it observed between similar images with no prior information, this would be considered unsupervised learning.

Reinforcement learning is quite different from the rest and would not fit very well in the example above. This form of machine learning gives the AI direct feedback on each decision that it makes with a score or other ranking system. This is the type of machine learning that trained AI to play chess and Go at an extremely high level, beating the top players in the world.
This is the most exciting form of machine learning that you will see in the news since it is by far the most flamboyant.
The other forms of machine learning are still very important, dealing with issues like spam detection and recommendation algorithms (in conjunction with reinforcement), but rarely make headlines.

REAL WORLD APPLICATIONS

There are countless real-world applications of machine learning, and this number is growing every day.
Some of the major uses include, but are not limited to,

• AI chatbots such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
• AI overviews on sites like Google
• Social media feed curation
• Autocorrect and predictive text

Machine learning is no longer a concept reserved for computer scientists and politicians. To fully understand the way that the world is moving, you must first understand key underlying concepts like these, even at a surface level, so that you can be well informed about the technology shaping the world.

I have talked to multiple people over the years about Canada’s electoral process, and I have found that most Canadians have a surprising gap in their understanding of how it actually works.

So, how does a federal election actually work?

HOW ELECTIONS GET CALLED

The Canada Elections Act sets fixed election dates every four years, normally in the third week of October. However, the Prime Minister can dissolve Parliament at any time by asking the Governor General to do so.

This is called a snap election, and is what happened in early 2025 when Prime Minister Mark Carney called an election after winning the Liberal leadership race following Justin Trudeau’s resignation.

After an election is called, there must be a campaign period between 37 and 51 days before voting occurs.
In addition, federal elections are nearly always held on a Monday.

There are a few reasons why a government may decide to call a snap election, including but not limited to:

• Taking advantage of high polling numbers to gain a majority
• Breaking the political deadlock in Parliament

HOW VOTING WORKS

To be eligible to vote in Canada, you must fulfill a few criteria, including

• Be above the age of 18
• Must be a Canadian citizen
• Must be registered with Elections Canada either before or on election day

On election day, you have the option to vote at your assigned voting station. If you do not want to do this, you can also participate in advance polling, which is available during the days leading up to the election. You also have the choice to vote by mail.

One thing to note is that in Canada, you technically are not voting directly for the next Prime Minister. Instead, you are voting for the Member of Parliament in your riding. The party that wins the most seats in Parliament usually forms the government, and its leader becomes the Prime Minister

FIRST PAST THE POST

Canada uses the first-past-the-post system for federal elections.

This means that in each riding, the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, even if they do not receive more than 50% of the vote. This system has been heavily criticized over the years, as a governing party can have most of the country vote against it, while still forming government.

For example, in a riding where one candidate receives 35% of the vote, another receives 34%, and another receives 31%, the candidate with 35% would still win the seat even though most voters did not choose them.

For a party to form a majority government, it must win 172 out of the 343 seats in the House of Commons. This is especially important because a majority government does not have to rely on opposing parties as heavily to pass legislation through Parliament.

Multiple candidates and parties have promised electoral reform over the years, but Canada’s voting system has remained largely unchanged.

Canada’s electoral system is quite simple to participate in, but there is some confusion about how the process actually works due to the slightly more complicated inner workings of the system. I hope that from reading this, you have learned something new about the system, or at least cleared some doubt in your mind about what is going on.

We all know about the United States of America’s undercover police, the FBI or Federal Bureau of Investigation. But how many Canadians can say they know the same about our own investigative division, CSIS?

Founded in 1984 after the RCMP was found to be conducting illegal operations, including break-ins and surveillance without warrants, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service serves as Canada’s primary domestic intelligence agency. Currently directed by Daniel Rogers, they investigate threats such as terrorism, extreme violence, espionage, foreign interference, cyber threats, and subversion (the act of undermining a government’s power). They report to the Minister of Public Safety, currently headed by Gary Anandasangaree since 2025.

Even though CSIS is our domestic investigative agency, there are a few major things that they cannot do, the most notable being to arrest, lay charges, or detain perpetrators. To get around this, they often work very closely with the RCMP, Canada’s national police force.

HOW DO THEY COLLECT INTELLIGENCE

There are multiple ways that CSIS can and does collect data, including, but not limited to,

• Human sources (interviews, tips)
• Electronic surveillance (could be enhanced with the addition of Bill C-22)
• Public Information
• Partner Agencies in other nations, such as MI5 in the United Kingdom

OVERSIGHT

The intelligence commissioner, currently Simon Noël, must approve certain surveillance activities proposed by CSIS for anything to come to fruition. In addition to this, the federal court must also issue warrants for more intrusive surveillance.
At the end of each year, CSIS publishes an annual public report; however, it is public knowledge that the majority of what they do is hidden.

Something key to note is that if Bill C-22 is passed, and companies are forced to retain private consumer metadata for at least a year, your data may not stay in Canada. CSIS routinely shares intelligence with partner agencies around the world, and more data on Canadians simply means more data that can cross borders.

CSIS has been quietly operating since 1984, and most Canadians will never interact with them. That’s by design. But in an era where your digital footprint grows every day, knowing who can access it and what they can do with it matters more than ever.

When important topics are widely debated, people naturally become more drawn to politics to find out whether their beliefs are actually being represented. Canada is no exception — the 2025 federal election saw a voter turnout of 69.7%, the highest since 1993, according to CTV News. But voting is just one way to engage.
For those who want to go further, the question becomes: how do you actually get into Canadian politics?

THE BASICS

There are 3 levels of Canadian politics: Municipal, Provincial, and Federal. Municipal governments represent cities, provincial governments represent provinces, and the federal government represents the country as a whole.

At the federal level, elected representatives are called Members of Parliament, or MPs. According to the House of Commons, Canada has 343 electoral districts, which correspond to 343 seats in the House of Commons: the elected chamber of Canada’s Parliament, where MPs vote and debate on legislation.

Now you might be asking yourself what the difference between a municipal government and a member of parliament is, since they both represent a geographic area within a province. The key difference here is their jurisdiction, or what they are actually accountable for. Your mayor covers local issues such as garbage, public transit and parks, whereas your MP covers significantly different issues such as national defence, immigration, criminal law, income tax, etc.

Also note that ridings are based on population, with each one in Canada roughly housing 108,000 people, differing greatly from cities, as your city could be part of two different ridings at the same time.

STEP ONE: JOIN A PARTY

There are 5 main federal parties in Canada

• Liberal
• Conservative
• NDP
• Green
• Bloc Québécois

To join these parties, you must pay a membership fee. These range from $0 to $25, with the Liberal party representing the $0 membership fee. You must also be a Canadian citizen or have permanent residence; however, to actually run, you must be a Canadian citizen. Remember to stay active in your local riding. This is the way to build up relationships to help with your nomination.

STEP TWO: WIN A NOMINATION

Before you can even run in the election, you must first win the “mini election” inside your own party. Through this, they will decide who will represent the party as a candidate member of parliament in your riding.

To even get on the ballot for this, you will need nomination signatures from other members in your riding.

It is important to note that the party leader can override the local ballots by choosing a candidate themselves.

When choosing a riding to break into, try not to choose one with a dominant leader who is already inside your party. As a result, there is significantly less incentive to give you a chance to replace them. Hyper-competitive ridings are much easier to break into, since the party is always looking for a better chance to win.

STEP 3: RUN IN THE ELECTION

Next, you will have to run against the other parties in your riding, going through a similar process to when you ran inside your riding.

This time, you will have to campaign significantly more. This includes town hall meetings, public debates and various advertising campaigns. You will also need to have a campaign manager to ensure a certain level of success.

A significant roadblock in this process will be funding. The Canada Elections Act imposes strict limits for ridings, as well as the fact that individuals are limited to $1,750 per year to a party and $1,750 per year to a candidate. This can make acquiring funding difficult.

Running to be any political figurehead is difficult; I won’t sugarcoat it. However, it isn’t impossible. People often believe that they have no shot at something like this, but digging deeper into the process, we can see that the system is a lot more open than most might understand it to be, and that truly anything can happen.