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Budget 2025 includes hopeful initiatives that will deliver real benefits to working Canadians at this time. In this reflection, SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn explains that, strategically, we really like the Budget’s focus on industrial strategy, some tentative steps on making more capital available to a wider diversity of Canadians and commitments to loosen the grip that our oligopolistic sectors have over our economy.  However, we are concerned by the lack of a strategic approach to providing more working people and young people a path to wealth, ownership and economic security. While the Budget responds to the wish list that corporate Canada has articulated for several years, there are no guarantees that they will indeed step up to invest—or that those investments will produce growth that benefits working people and communities.   

We share the disappointment felt across Canada’s business and advisory community that Budget 2025 did not make the $10 million capital gains exemption for sales through Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) a permanent feature of Canada’s tax system. The current incentive, passed only in 2024 with an expiry set for December 2026, means that the business community has not had adequate time to act on this opportunity or build adequate momentum for this promising succession model. In this statement, Employee Ownership Canada responds to the Budget and reaffirms its strong commitment to working with government and partners to make the capital gains exemption permanent, ensuring employee ownership trusts remain a viable, long-term option for Canadian businesses.

There is some confusion out there about Budget 2025 and employee ownership trusts (EOTs). To confirm, the federal government did not extend the $10M capital-gains exemption for sales through EOTs, in the budget released on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Because the sale of a business to an EOT is a process that often takes more than a year, certainty on the rules is essential for owners, advisors and employees planning succession. In this FAQ, Employee Ownership Canada answers key questions about what’s enacted now, why the incentive matters for uptake and how the sector, businesses and the organization are moving forward from the Budget news.

Mainstream, or “neoclassical,” economics still dominates how we teach, study and understand our economy, even though much of it doesn’t match reality. In this piece, economists Louis-Philippe Rochon and Guillaume Vallet explain why outdated economic ideas persist and how they can lead to harmful policies. They challenge five common myths about inflation, growth and inequality, showing that today’s economy is driven more by power and institutions than by perfect markets. As "heterodox" economists, they argue it's time for a new kind of economics that reflects how the real world actually works.

When U.S. tariffs threaten to strike creativity and culture, we can't afford to stay quiet. SCP Fellow and POV executive director Biju Pappachan explores the implications of the U.S. imposing a tariff on foreign-made films and explains why this is the moment for Canada to stand up for its filmmakers, crews and cultural sovereignty. Film and television are not luxuries; cultural production is a strategic sector that delivers exports, jobs and soft power. Just as we negotiate for agricultural or industrial tariff exemptions, cultural production deserves equal protection.

Some cryptocurrency advocates are promoting the use of stablecoins as a common currency, arguing that this new currency could help the cost-of-living crisis and promote economic equality – particularly for young people. Law professor, money expert and SCP Fellow Dan Rohde is not convinced that crypto can help address economic inequality. In this explainer, he breaks down what stablecoins are and aren’t, and how to think critically about their promises.

Budget 2025 offers Canada a chance to make employee ownership permanent by extending tax incentives for employee ownership trusts (EOTs) and worker co-ops. In Canadian Dimension, Simon Pek, Lorin Busaan and Alex Hemingway write that doing so would boost productivity, reduce inequality and secure business succession, while keeping jobs and decision-making local. A modest investment promises significant economic and social dividends.

For what it’s like to be on the inside of an employee-owned company, we spoke to a few of the 750 employees who recently became 100-per cent owners of Taproot Community Support Services, a social services provider across B.C., Alberta and Ontario. Rewards the employees highlighted include company morale and spirit, for sure. They also include financial rewards paid out annually to each employee as dividends. Last year, each employee would have received about $1000 to $1500 on top of their salaries—and as the company succeeds over time, the employees will share financially in Taproot’s success.

Our government’s best available data on Canada’s wealth gap excludes, by design, the wealthiest families in the country. As SCP Director of Policy Dan Skilleter writes, if we didn’t have the Parliamentary Budget Officer fact-checking Statistics Canada’s work, their numbers would tell us the top one per cent own only 2.5 per cent of all wealth – not nearly 25 per cent of all wealth in Canada, as the PBO reports. We like to think of Canada as a beacon of egalitarianism compared to our southern neighbours, but when you add in data from "rich lists" published by Forbes and Maclean's, our wealth concentration looks quite similar to the U.S.

At the recent Victoria Forum, community and philanthropic leaders outlined creative community finance and impact investment ideas that could mobilize big pools of private capital to invest in local businesses, social purpose organizations and community infrastructure. However, as SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn writes, despite the growing maturity of the social finance community, Canada still lacks the social and community financing infrastructure and policies to make this happen. With some important fixes to fragmented financing and outdated regulatory frameworks, the coming Budget could make it easier for social finance investments to properly scale and deliver the kind of outsized impact Canada needs at this time.