In some spots they are, but not in every spot, though. The Competition Bureau's market study on this in 2017 concluded that, when it comes to payment processing in the credit card market, competition is fairly strong. It's probably still fairly strong today.
Just for kicks, I went on Shopify's website and looked at all of the different payment processors they have integrations with. There were way too many to count.
The market has also started competing along non-price based margins. They don't only say, “I can give you a better deal.” They say, “I can also do your inventory management. I can do your reconciliation. I can handle your fraud.” They're competing quite viciously with each other for market share.
Where we don't see competition is when it comes to some other payment systems that could be used as a way to compete with credit cards. In particular, our national payment systems, that real-time rail that everyone keeps talking about. Access to that thing has been restricted and controlled by the biggest banks in the country, who happen to make a lot of money from credit cards.
I think, in this country, we have a governance problem in the payment system, and nothing the government is doing right now is addressing that. I think that is actually what the problem is.