Canada is a way better bet than the United States right now
By Matthew Mendelsohn | Part of our Special Series: Always Canada. Never 51.
Eight weeks ago, many in Canada were preparing for a trade war with the United States and were looking for compromises we could make to avoid it. The media were filled with stories about workers about to lose their jobs and businesses thinking about relocating to the U.S. to avoid tariffs.
That seems like a long time ago.
There are real risks to Canada. But we’re not talking nearly enough about the risks of doing business or investing in the U.S.
I remember learning about risk and uncertainty a long time ago. We discussed these concepts in the context of investing in emerging markets or unstable democracies. I remember learning about the “prudent investor” rule and fiduciary duty to shareholders.
Doing business in an unstable, retreating democracy governed by the whims of erratic billionaires, career criminals and Russian assets is not a place you should want to invest. It isn’t prudent.
Large parts of the U.S. economy are becoming more extractive and predatory, with the same uncertainties that one finds in other authoritarian systems – corruption, cronyism, corporate blackmail, extortion, civic unrest and threats to one’s livelihood and civil rights.
These are new risks for businesses and investors in the U.S. How does one calibrate the risk that comes from a president who might try to shake you down? Or Elon Musk waking up tomorrow and canceling your firm’s contract, insisting that Starlink can do the work better?
I’m not a financial analyst and I don’t know how one would quantify these risks. But we seem to be in black swan territory. The risk of investing in the U.S. today feels a lot like investing in Russia 20 years ago. Yes, wealthy and powerful companies will probably become even more wealthy and powerful. But it will be more difficult for most companies to compete in a rigged market, with success determined by fealty to the regime rather than hard work, innovation or ingenuity.
The rules of commerce that we have taken for granted in democratic capitalist societies no longer apply in the U.S. Call their emerging model of capitalism what you will – gangster, crony, disaster, techno, late-stage – there is no doubt there is money to be made if you get in at the right time with the right people. But it is highly volatile and unpredictable.
The impact of what is going on today – for example, the hollowing out of state capacity to perform the basic functions of democratic government – will grow.
I don’t want to understate the risks to Canadian jobs and businesses right now. Many businesses are facing very difficult choices. But we need to talk more openly about risks in the U.S., and the risk to Canadians in continuing to tie ourselves to an unstable, authoritarian power.
The American version of capitalism and democracy currently on display is not one to which we should aspire. It is a result of a capitalist and democratic model that produces extreme inequality, concentrated power and inadequately funded public services.
What can we do? First, a prudent person would stop arming those who want to do us harm. Canadian pension funds and all holders of institutional capital should gradually reduce their exposure to the unstable American economy.
“We need to talk more openly about risks in the U.S., and the risk to Canadians in continuing to tie ourselves to an unstable, authoritarian power.”
Second, we need to double down on our commitments to diversity, inclusion and democratic capitalism. I believe that the things we claimed are true are in fact true: diversity around the management table and employees with purpose produce better outcomes for businesses and society. I believe it is possible to build positive-sum outcomes and shared value within properly regulated capitalist markets.
Third, we need to defend the rules and institutions that make democracies work for businesses and investors: the independent judiciary, the non-partisan public service, the rule of law rather than the rule of the autocrat, the independent press, competitive open markets, an independent military and police, strong labour unions and social protections. We need to protect all of these in Canada. The rule of law and the ability to enforce contracts are not sexy, but they make capitalism work.
And fourth, all of our institutions need to look at how we attract entrepreneurs, technologists, scientific researchers and others who want to escape our southern neighbour. Many will be persecuted, and many will want to do their work within the context of a healthier democracy and economy. I get emails regularly from people who want to bring their expertise to Canada. We should mobilize across society to help people do that.
Canada’s value proposition today is the same as it was last year and it aligns with the values most Canadians hold, even if we execute on them imperfectly: diversity, inclusion, freedom, equality, democracy, respect and reconciliation. I would rather invest in a country that strives to uphold those values and build an inclusive, democratic capitalist system than invest in the uncertain, volatile mess that is the United States right now.
Canadian foundations must invest more in Canada and invest for local impact
By Matthew Mendelsohn | Part of our Special Series: Always Canada. Never 51.
It is now obvious that the United States under Donald Trump has changed in ways that threaten our economic well-being.
Canadians get this. Many Canadians and institutions are supporting local businesses and producers. But buying Canadian is not enough. We also need to be investing Canadian.
Every institution that holds capital, power and influence should invest in Canada’s long-term resilience, growth and sovereignty. This means investing in Canadian businesses and projects, and investing for social, environmental or local impact.
Foundations in Canada, both private and community, hold hundreds of billions of dollars in their endowments. Endowments held by our universities, colleges, hospitals and other public-purpose institutions, including our philanthropic foundations and those who manage our donor advised funds, need to reorient their investment practices to meet this moment. For these anchor institutions in our communities, investing in long-term resilience is not just about doing their part—it is core to the success of their missions.
There are historic reasons why many holders of capital don’t invest much in Canada, and reasons why the impact-investing movement has not had the transformative impact that many hoped for.
Many investment managers and advisors to foundations claim that they do not want to be over-exposed to the Canadian market to ensure balance, returns and the preservation of their capital. They have acted as a “prudent person” would, seeking strong, risk-adjusted returns so that they can continue their grant making.
It is also true that it has historically been difficult to find sizeable investments that deliver social impact. When Social Capital Partners started impact investing more than 20 years ago, there was little infrastructure to support investors who wanted to generate returns while also delivering positive social, environmental or local impact. There was also not a pipeline of investments.
But this has now changed. Today, there are many investment vehicles, funds and managers of all kinds who know how to invest for impact in Canada. We now have an infrastructure to support investments across asset classes that can deliver social or environmental impact. The federal government’s $755-million investment in the Social Finance Fund has also supported the maturation of this ecosystem.
Foundations need to target transformative impact now, as the communities they serve are under threat. The boards of foundations should mandate that their investment managers find impact-oriented investments and start the transition right away, and if they can’t or won’t hit targets to move their investments towards impact within three years, they should be replaced with those who have the expertise to do so.
Most of the philanthropic capital in Canada today is invested in a variety of asset classes, with the goal of achieving risk-adjusted rates of return, but not impact. If American equities like Tesla or Meta provide better returns than affordable housing or Canadian medium-sized tech companies, well then, that’s where investments have been going.
Foundations need to target transformative impact now, as the communities they serve are under threat.
However, unlike 20 years ago, investment managers today can find investments at scale that deliver positive social and environmental impact across asset classes, including public markets, private markets, debt, affordable housing and infrastructure. Investment managers such as Rally Assets, TwinRiver Capital and Clear Skies Investment Management, among others, have experience managing large investments and delivering returns across multiple bottom lines.
There is room to grow the range and scale of impact investment opportunities; holders of philanthropic capital can and should push for more. They need to use their power to shape the investment market and communicate that we need to catch up to new geopolitical realities. If foundations insist on impact, investment managers will find suitable investments that support Canadians, our communities and our businesses. Although many foundations have carve-outs that they use to invest in Canada or for impact, those need to be bigger.
Foundations should also devote some portion of their investment capital to smaller initiatives, with an aim to grow them. Investment funds for local businesses like Nova Scotia’s Community Economic Development Investment Fund (CEDIF) model should be scaled across the country, and endowments can use these kinds of fund structures to invest in their local business and social-enterprise ecosystem.
Canadian foundations should insist that their investment managers:
- diversify globally by decreasing exposure to the U.S.,
- actively seek Canadian opportunities, and
- invest for impact across asset classes in ways that contribute to economic resilience and community well-being.
Governments should support this shift. Government can be explicit in clarifying that fiduciary responsibility entails making investments that bolster the long-term resiliency of the Canadian economy. They should also say they will tax the investment earnings from endowments if those investments are not focused on impact within three years, which gives foundations and investment managers time to transition. These changes will shift incentives and shape investment markets towards building Canadian wealth, sovereignty and economic growth.
Foundations can use their power to accelerate the maturation of Canada’s impact-investing market in ways that support our economic resilience, growth and sovereignty, while delivering financial returns sufficient to ensure their sustainability. Doing so is prudent in the broadest sense of the word. Investing in companies that undermine the goals of the foundation or our democratic institutions is not prudent in any sense of the word.
Canada’s economy is being attacked, and our foundations sit on huge pools of capital. They need to do more to support Canadian communities at this time of geopolitical and economic threat.
The answer to economic threats: Always Canada. Never 51.
By Matthew Mendelsohn | Part of our Special Series: Always Canada. Never 51.
The Trump administration is engaged in an economic war of aggression against Canadians. Every day it becomes clearer that the United States is currently a threat to Canada and other democracies around the world. While we wish our American friends well and hope the U.S. changes course, that is not in our hands. Canadians need to prepare.
At Social Capital Partners, we focus on creating pathways for working people to build wealth, own assets and gain economic security. It has been our assumption that extreme wealth inequality and highly concentrated ownership of the economy lead to poor economic performance, civic unrest and democratic decline.
Nothing from the past few weeks leads us to believe differently. When most people don’t have a realistic chance to build economic security, and when they see a system stacked in favour of those who already possess wealth and power, bad stuff happens.
But good stuff is happening too. There is now a wide consensus that we need to be less economically vulnerable to Trump’s economic threats. We are buying more Canadian, investing more in Canada and putting aside relatively minor partisan and regional differences to stand in solidarity with one another.
We are likely at the beginning of a whole-of-society project as Canadians figure out how to mobilize collectively to reorient our policies, practices and investments towards building a stronger, more independent economy in the face of geopolitical threat.
During the free-trade debate of the 1988 Canadian election, Prime Minister Turner famously said that once our economic levers go, our political independence would follow. Canadians have mostly ignored that warning over the past 35 years and our businesses have oriented themselves to buy and sell from the American market, with treaty assurances about how that trade will work. But the current administration has no problem ignoring those agreements.
We are more vulnerable today than we were fifty years ago. We are a branch plant economy, and many of our largest employers do their research and development and hold their IP outside Canada. Many of our businesses have been bought up by American private-equity funds, our main streets are dominated by American chains and many of our largest natural resource companies are no longer owned by Canadians. And we don’t talk about these facts enough because our independent Canadian media has also been bought up by American hedge funds and cannibalized by American digital tech platforms.
Those currently waging an information war against us are hoping to destabilize and divide us, and instill a sense of resignation. But from across the country and across the political spectrum, the opposite is happening. Our commitment to unity has been overwhelming and the realization that we need to build a stronger, more dynamic, less dependent Canadian economy has become obvious. But we need to get busy.
Today, Social Capital Partners is launching a series of policy ideas that will help change systems and grow a more resilient, diversified and independent Canadian economy. Many of our ideas are for governments, but they are also directed towards others who hold wealth and power. We believe that those who control large pools of investment capital have a responsibility to put their resources to work for Canadian communities under threat.
Canada needs to try things we haven’t tried before. We need to do things we know we should have done a long time ago. We need to pursue ideas where the evidence base is strong and where we have straightforward policy and legislative levers. And we also need to try some crazy stuff.
Today, Social Capital Partners is launching a series of policy ideas that will help change systems and grow a more resilient, diversified and independent Canadian economy.
All sectors need to get involved, and government must be there to support and de-risk those efforts. Some things might not work—but failing to act quickly and ambitiously is by far the bigger risk.
Our series focuses on policy ideas that:
- Support Canadian economic sovereignty, advance ownership for Canadians and reduce dependence on the U.S.
- Advance the interests of workers, small businesses, the economically vulnerable and young Canadians who have known for a long time that our economy is not working well for them
- Include sufficient detail to be actionable so we can begin to implement them quickly
Canada is a big, powerful, wealthy country. We are at a moment of historic and geopolitical transition, and we need to seize this opportunity to build an innovative, sovereign economy that builds wealth for working people and supports a strong, inclusive democracy.
So, under economic threat from our powerful neighbour, what do we choose? Always Canada. Never 51.
Feb. 25 Webinar | What about cities? Building economic resilience amidst a new Canada-U.S. order
Join moderator Shauna Sylvester for an Urban Climate Leadership online webinar featuring Mary Rowe, CEO of Canadian Urban Institute, Mairin Loewen, Assoc. Program Director at UCL and Matthew Mendelsohn, CEO at Social Capital Partners in discussion on the impact of U.S. tariffs on Canadian cities.
February 25, 2025 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET.
Panelists
Mairin Loewen
Associate Program Director, Urban Climate Leadership
Matthew Mendelsohn
CEO, Social Capital Partners
Moderator
Shauna Sylvester
Lead, Urban Climate Leadership
Feb. 14 Webinar | When Global Hits Local
Global trade policies have real, immediate consequences for Canada’s main streets. In the face of America’s economic assault, Canada’s local businesses, municipalities and economic leaders must navigate uncertainty while ensuring community resilience. How will tariffs impact small businesses, supply chains and local economies? What strategies can cities use to adapt and strengthen their economic foundations?
Join SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn and a panel of experts at Canadian Urban Institute’s CityTalk Live, Feb. 14, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET for a discussion of practical, community-driven solutions to bolster local economies in the face of global shifts.
Panelists
Justin Towndale
Mayor, City of Cornwall
Matthew Mendelsohn
CEO, Social Capital Partners
Rino Bortolin
Strategic Advisor & Project Manager, Windsor Law Centre for Cities
Tori Williamson
COO, Buy Social Canada
Moderator
Mary W. Rowe
CEO, Canadian Urban Institute
The strength within: Some economists say we can't count on fair and open trade with the U.S. anymore. Is it time for Canada to look inward instead? | Toronto Star
By Ana Pereira | The Toronto Star
When U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch a full-blown trade war with its closest ally, many Canadians felt as if their best friend had suddenly turned around and stabbed them in the back.
Trump’s string of accusations, along with increasingly hostile suggestions that the U.S. annex Canada as “the 51st state,” have led many to pledge boycotts of American products. The majority of Canadians now support calling on the government to reduce our reliance on the U.S. as a trading partner, according to a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute of more than 1,800 adults.
Patriotism aside, there are solid economic reasons why Canada might want to consider reducing trade with America, according to economists. Trump’s threats have introduced a major source of uncertainty in a decades-old trade partnership that saw Canada give up some of its independence in exchange for economic prosperity and stability.
It’s a relationship that has benefitted both economies, with nearly 80 per cent of Canadian exports currently ending up south of the border, but it was built on trust, and trade experts say that trust is now gone.
Is achieving a greater degree of economic independence from the U.S. really possible? Can we really undo decades of integration without seeing our economy crumble?
The Star spoke with economists, academics and other experts, including SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn, about how the country should best navigate this new era of Trump’s isolationism, and found there are realistic steps we can take to reduce our dependence on the States.
Joint submission to the Ontario Securities Commission regarding a proposal to expand retail investor access to private equity
On February 7, 2025, the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (“CAMP”) and Social Capital Partners (“SCP”) submitted a joint letter to the Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC”) in response to the OSC’s Consultation Paper 81-737 – Opportunity to Improve Retail Investor Access to Long-Term Assets through Investment Fund Product Structures. The comments detail deep concerns from CAMP and SCP regarding the proposals set forth in the Consultation Paper related to expanding access to private equity.
CAMP and SCP are focused, among other matters, on educating Canadians and our policymakers about the risks associated with buyout private-equity funds and the harms they can cause. CAMP published “The Private Equity Playbook: How buyout firms extract rather than build value and what to do about it” and CAMP and SCP jointly hosted a virtual talk with some of the leading private equity critics to educate Canadians about how buyout private equity operates and how it impacts our economy and communities.
The perspectives are rooted in nearly a decade of first-hand legal and exempt-market dealer industry experience, working with or advising fund managers and/or their portfolio companies. Read the letter for complete comments.
Three ideas to make home ownership more affordable that aren't getting the attention they need
Canadians are more vulnerable to Trump’s economic warfare today because our housing system is in crisis and has left many Canadians insecure in their housing. Some of our own bad policy choices have put us in this position of vulnerability. But there are things we can do to rectify this, and I know who I want to hear from.
Mike Moffat and the team at Missing Middle have made a real impact on housing policy in Canada. Their work has helped refocus our discussions on supply and, more recently, on increasing costs caused by things like development charges. They have been a model for how non-partisan, evidence-based research and advocacy can shape public policy. Housing is still a national crisis because governments have made such terrible policy decisions for a very long time, but the team at Missing Middle is making things better.
So, I’d like to raise three housing policy issues that could use more of their attention.
First, the role of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in making housing more expensive. CMHC charges mortgage insurance to new home buyers and makes a large profit. Their philosophical approach to their business is to run themselves like a private–sector mortgage insurer, rather than a public–purpose financial institution. They should stop doing that. Their large profit means they are charging too much. CMHC should be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Their policies make housing more expensive.
Why the government allows this remains a mystery. What say you Nate Erskine-Smith? As we face a declaration of economic war from the American administration, why is CMHC over-charging first-time home buyers?
Second, Missing Middle’s work has downplayed the role of investors in driving up prices. We at SCP have been on this issue for a while, and it seems obvious to us that if first-time home buyers are competing with investors looking for a safe place to park their funds, well, prices will go up and middle-class people will be priced out.
Investors are important for new residential development, but having investors buy existing homes drives up prices. This is true with respect to large residential real–estate investors as well as smaller ones.
We should disincentivize practices that treat real estate as an investment class. The U.K. has just increased its surcharge when you buy a second home, and in Singapore, there are graduated charges if you are buying a second or third home. In Canada we could do that. Dominic LeBlanc and Nate Erskine-Smith, what say you? As we face a full economic assault that will hit working and middle –class people hardest, why are we allowing investors to grow wealthier while families cannot afford a home?
“As we face a full economic assault that will hit working and middle-class people hardest, why are we allowing investors to grow wealthier while families cannot afford a home?“
And third, we need some research on the consolidation of various services in the residential real estate building sector. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that many of the input costs related to building housing are getting more expensive, beyond what should be expected if markets were working properly. There are lots of factors connected to price inflation, but it appears that prices are going up in part because of market consolidation, private equity roll-ups and a lack of real competition. Many services important to the price of residential housing in some communities are increasingly run like cartels.
We need research on how this lack of competition and oligopolistic behaviour is impacting the price of housing. What say you François-Philippe Champagne and the Competition Bureau? Will you look into this? One way to make life more affordable for Canadians is to have real local competition.
These are just three questions that I think merit more attention. As we face an economic attack from the U.S. administration, there are many other things we can be doing in housing, like financing our non-market sector and approaching housing as strategic industrial policy. Our exporters and manufacturers are looking for new buyers for their products and accelerated investments in housing can help.
I’m curious what Mike Moffat thinks about these issues. I think they need more attention.
There are lots of things in the world we can’t control, but we have to stop sabotaging ourselves on the things Canada can control, like the cost of housing.
Inside the corporate battle over your pet's health | The Fifth Estate
SCP Fellow Rachel Wasserman speaks with CBC’s Steven D’Souza as part of an investigation into the skyrocketing cost of owning a pet. The documentary reveals how independent vet clinics are being gobbled up by multinational corporations and private equity for profit.
Speakers
Steven D’Souza
CBC’s The Fifth Estate
Concepts of a plan to confront the new United States
Just because we don’t like what’s happening doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
It is so very Canadian that our commentators are filling the airwaves trying to figure out how to accommodate Trump’s tariff threats as if we’re having some kind of fact-based dispute on softwood lumber in the 1980s. Authoritarian superpowers threaten because they can.
Maybe we can find some magic combination of border measures and retaliatory actions that will unwind the worst of these threats. But even if you want to make a spirited case over a beer that the madness in the U.S. will pass, or that Trump is bluffing, or that countervailing centres of power in the U.S. will resist him, those increasingly look like magical thinking. What’s about to happen is seriously bad for Canada and we need to get busy.
Our playbook so far – some combination of making the case to Americans that they need us and preparing retaliatory trade action – is not enough. It isn’t even for the right game.
We need to start by recognizing that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner or friend, and begin reorienting our economy accordingly.
This is obviously not easy and it is not clear where it will take us. But we have to try.
We have had a strategic economic alliance with the U.S. for a very long time. Both countries have believed that it was mutually beneficial. The current administration has said clearly they no longer believe this to be the case.
While things may change, we cannot presume they will. We must accommodate ourselves to a world in which the U.S. says quite explicitly that it doesn’t care about our economic well-being.
Our public discussions about “how to respond to tariffs” obscure the far bigger threat that is much more difficult to process intellectually and emotionally: we are living in a world in which the U.S. is using its enormous wealth and power to put America first, and the interests of Canada are irrelevant to that project.
Although there are many Americans who abhor what the Trump administration is doing, the largest, most powerful companies in the world, many of which are integrated digital, AI, media and national security companies, understand what they are expected to do.
So, it sucks to be us, but let’s get on with the work of changing the mental maps that shape how we understand our relationship with the U.S. It’s not us, it’s them. They’ve changed. So now we need a different plan.
This radically different world means we must embrace strategic industrial and economic policy focused on building Canadian wealth, data sovereignty, industrial capacity, scientific and technological excellence, natural resource leadership and intellectual property. Some smart proposals include ideas to remove patent protection for pharmaceuticals and create our own digital app store.
There is so much we can do. We should reorient long-standing government procurement processes to purchase goods from Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs.
We should redirect all government advertising on American-owned global digital platforms and media to Canadian outlets.
“So, it sucks to be us, but let’s get on with the work of changing the mental maps that shape how we understand our relationship with the U.S. It’s not us, it’s them. They’ve changed. So now we need a different plan.”
We should allocate more capital to the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Export Development Canada (EDC) and Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) to invest in Canadian businesses, support Canadian entrepreneurs who want to buy businesses from those retiring and de-risk aggressive strategies to diversify trade. We should accelerate the capital cost allowance as we have done in the past. And it seems clear we should control our own digital and wireless networks and not let Elon Musk anywhere near them.
This will require all governments to re-organize around big challenges rather than specific ministries. This will need to start with informal governance and workarounds because systems change slowly and we need to start today.
But this isn’t just a public-policy project for governments. This is a whole-of-Canada project for all of us.
Large public-purpose institutions, like hospitals, colleges and universities need to look at their procurement and purchasing practices, as well as the investment practices of their endowments and invest more at home.
Philanthropic foundations, heavily subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer, must grant more than their 5% disbursement and invest more of their endowments in ways that have a positive impact in Canadian communities. Donor-advised funds and family offices should do likewise and choose, for example, to invest more in affordable housing and less in American equities. Why not fund an unlimited number of new medical, science and tech research chairs and see what that produces?
Our pension funds have resisted calls to invest more in Canada, but American capital is being mobilized to advance the narrow ‘America First’ economic interests of the U.S. It cannot be business as usual for Canadian pension funds.
And all of our corporate giants and financial institutions who benefit from the regulatory protection of the Canadian state now must put their money where their mouths have been: if it is really in the national interest to have large oligopolies, now is the time to reorient their practices to purchase and invest to support Canadians and smaller Canadian companies.
Our public financial institutions, like Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the Canada Infrastructure Bank, BDC and EDC can make all kinds of significant changes, including simple ones like charging Canadians less for insurance or reducing interest rates to small businesses.
And just as we sued Big Tobacco companies in the past, it’s time to revisit the civil suits against social media giants for the social harms that they cause – processes that were ended when protections for digital platforms were stealthily included in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.
And perhaps the most important point as we prepare to confront this existential threat: our institutions of power and influence should undertake all of this work with a focus on the interests and lives of working and middle-class people. At the end of the day, our corporate leaders and retired public servants like me will be fine (probably…?) But there are lots of people who won’t be fine and will find themselves pushed into bankruptcy or hunger or homelessness. As we reorient our mindset, practices and policies to adjust to this new world, we need to put the interests of working Canadians first.
I don’t pretend to have a detailed plan, but we need to mobilize all our formal and informal networks. The coalitions, councils and networks of elite power need to step up for Canadians. Stop talking and start doing. And at the more local level, the chambers of commerce and community foundations need to get together next week to figure out better ways to support their communities starting yesterday.
None of this may work. But what Trump seeks is submission and humiliation from anyone he deals with. Even if you were wearing a MAGA hat last year, some part of you has to recognize that the U.S. has changed in ways that threaten Canadians’ economic well-being. It is clear that some of us are choosing subjugation, but we don’t have to.
Living next to a superpower run by oligarchs is not where we expected to be 20 years ago. But it’s where we are. Pretending otherwise doesn’t serve our interests. Canada is big enough, powerful enough, smart enough and rich enough to reorient our policies, practices and investments towards building a stronger, more independent economy. We just haven’t had to do that until now. But now we have to. I’m done with this shit.