The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that while some nations nurture competition, Canadians love monopolies. Guest columnist Ira Wells writes that yes, we have our Competition Bureau, the government agency that pays lip service to "promoting competition for the benefit of Canadian consumers and business." Meanwhile, near-monopolistic conditions reign in sectors ranging from telco (where almost 90 per cent of business is split between Rogers, Bell and Telus) to air travel (where Air Canada and WestJet account for more than 80 per cent of our domestic market share) to banking (where the six largest banks control 80 per cent of assets) to groceries (where more than 50 per cent of the market is controlled by Loblaw and Sobeys. Canada's fondness for monopoly is an effect with multiple causes, from our history and geography to a small ruling class that sides with the biggest players in business. Yet beneath these factors lies an unacknowledged story about the nature of Canada. This story, which the famed professor Northrop Frye once called the "garrison mentality," emerges from the imaginative depths of the Canadian wilderness. It is deep within our bones that forming dominant organizations is inherently virtuous.