Our Work
Over the past thirty years, most of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the wealthy. We want to help fix that with ideas and policies that create more opportunities for working people to build wealth and own assets.
The Ownership Solution
This special series features policy solutions that help more workers and communities profit from the value they create. We can redesign how our economy is owned so more Canadians benefit.
Toronto is piloting a city-owned grocery store. Could it help fight high food prices?
Toronto City Council has approved initial steps toward a city-owned grocery store pilot to increase competition and drive down food prices. The move addresses growing concern over Canada's grocery oligopoly, where major chains have posted outsized profits—a trend critics link to "sellers' inflation" since COVID. SCP's CEO Matthew Mendelsohn sees the pilot as a promising step toward public ownership models that prioritize affordability over investor returns.
Why Canada should back employee ownership trusts for the long term | TheFutureEconomy.ca
Established in 2024, Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) allow business owners to sell their companies to a trust held on behalf of employees, keeping firms in Canadian hands, building worker wealth and strengthening local communities. Jon Shell makes the case for EOTs in TheFutureEconomy.ca. With a temporary capital gains tax exemption set to expire in 2026, he and other advocates are urging the federal government to make the incentive permanent before momentum stalls.
How Employee Ownership Trusts keep wealth in Canada | Canadian Business
The coming wave of business successions will shape Canada’s economy for generations. In Canadian Business, Jon Shell explains how employee ownership safeguards economic sovereignty, while boosting growth, productivity and local wealth, giving employees struggling with affordability a new source of income. As entrepreneurs and owners seek alternatives to selling abroad, the employee ownership trust (EOT) provides a practical answer. Instead of letting the EOT tax incentive expire at the end of 2026, now is the time for the government to double down on employee ownership.
Watch the video: EOTs in Canada – a new succession option for business owners with Jon Shell
In this episode of the Moolala: Money Made Simple podcast, Jon Shell joins Bruce Sellery to explain how employee ownership trusts (EOTs) work and why they could reshape business ownership in Canada. They discuss what employee ownership means and how it works, the purpose of the new Employee Ownership Research Initiative, current research gaps around employee-owned businesses and how employee ownership has evolved in Canada in recent years. The conversation explores how employee ownership could support business succession, strengthen workplaces and create new pathways for shared prosperity.
The Latest
Watch the video: Should pension funds help build Canada’s future? | TVO’s The Rundown
TVO's The Rundown convened a discussion about whether Canadian pension funds should increase domestic investments versus investing internationally. The video segment examines the risks and rewards of using Canadian pension capital for nation-building projects, highlighting that Canadian pension funds managed nearly $2.5 trillion in assets by the end of 2024, but a large portion is invested outside of Canada. Panelists Matthew Mendelsohn and Keith Ambachtsheer discuss whether funds should focus solely on financial returns or also on contributing to Canada's economic growth.
Tied Up: Unleashing Canada’s non-profit housing potential
Canada’s non-profit housing sector is structurally constrained. Well-intentioned accountability mechanisms, designed to protect public investment and ensure affordability, often have the unintended effect of limiting balance-sheet capacity, restricting access to financing and preventing asset leverage. Consequently, the non-market housing sector remains underdeveloped. In consultation with stakeholders and partners in the non-profit housing space, report authors Michelle Arnold and Savraj Syan identify three technical issue fixes that could unleash Canada's non-profit housing potential.
Unlocking non-profit assets: The low-cost fixes Canada’s housing sector desperately needs
Growing the non-market housing sector is a national priority and building the capacity of non-profits to deliver more of it is one of the most important levers available. Unfortunately, explain Michelle Arnold and Savraj Syan, at the very moment governments are counting on non-profit housing providers to deliver more affordable housing, a set of overlooked technical barriers is preventing those same providers from leveraging their own assets—which is key to increasing their borrowing power—to do exactly that.
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