On September 5, the World Economic Forum released the 2012-2013
edition of its Global Competitiveness Report. The Report uses
financial and statistical data as well as executive opinion surveys
to rank countries on a wide variety of metrics related to social
and economic competitiveness. Canada was ranked 14th overall, down
two places from its result in 2011-2012.
Of interest to businesses and competition counsel, Canada ranked
21st overall in the "effectiveness of anti-monopoly
policy" category. Respondents to the executive opinion survey
were asked to what extent they felt that anti-monopoly policy
promoted competition in their respective countries, on a scale of
one to seven (with a score of seven meaning that anti-monopoly
policy "effectively promote[d] competition"). The mean
score was 4.0. Canada scored 4.9, beneath countries such as the
U.S. (also 4.9; 17th overall) and the U.K. (5.2; 10th overall), and
even Qatar (5.3; 8th overall) and South Africa (5.3; 6th
