In the media

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.

Approving a sale of Parkland to Sunoco may be attractive to the government because it would add US$9 billion to Canada’s total foreign direct investment (FDI), which politicians often tout as an indicator of national economic health. But, as SCP Fellow Sarah Doyle and SCP Chair Jon Shell write, total foreign direct investment is not a good reflection of the underlying strength of the economy. Plus, this deal would bring none of the benefits typically associated with FDI. It is unlikely to lead to increased capital investment, more or better jobs, or technology transfer into Canada. In fact, its impact may be just the opposite. If there ever was a deal with almost no Canadian winners, this is it. Ottawa should say no to Sunoco.

Neil Corbett of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News reports on locally based Taproot Community Support Services making some business history in Canada. Taproot's 750 employees in B.C., Alberta Ontario will now own 100 per cent of the business, becoming the largest Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) in Canada and the first in the social services sector. Finance minister Francois-Philippe Champagne explains why this is a perfect example of what EOTs can do, calling the trusts "a powerful, timely tool that helps Canadian employees become owners of the businesses they work for, while helping entrepreneurs find the right people to carry their legacy forward."

On Sept. 2, 2025, B.C.-based Taproot community support services surprised its 750 employees with the news they will become equal owners of the company they helped build. Minister of Finance & National Revenue Francois-Philippe Champagne joined CEO Mike Fotheringham and Social Capital Partners Chair Jon Shell to celebrate the new worker-owners and Canada’s largest Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) to date. In the Globe and Mail, Meera Raman reports on Taproot's milestone and how this succession model keeps companies Canadian, keeps jobs in local communities and builds wealth for workers.

Breaking Points podcast correspondent James Li sits down with corporate lawyer, economic analyst and SCP Fellow Rachel Wasserman to discuss Trump's executive order opening up 401k plans to private equity. Trends show that with rising interest rates and frozen exit markets, the private equity investment model could be under serious stress. So, what are the implications of making this type of investment available to retail investors and their retirement plans? Rachel walks James through how private equity works, what's so dangerous about the buyout-PE model and who might get left holding the bag. 

New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. On CBC political podcast West of Centre, host Rob Brown asks Petit to dissect the metric politicians love to wield. GDP measures total output, while GDP per capita divides that sum by the population. She explains that the simple math offers an easy snapshot, but can mislead when used alone. For a true read on prosperity, Petit argues Canada needs a broader economic dashboard that weighs productivity, fairness and long term well being.

What happens when a Canadian toy company, a global trade war and the unraveling of American stability collide? Charting in the top 10 on Apple Podcasts, the new Gloves Off podcast talks to Zita Cobb of Fogo Island Inn and Jon Shell of Social Capital Partners about what comes after the collapse of business as usual. Listen for bold ideas on how Canada can prevent getting stuck playing America’s game—and losing.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's campaign focused on economic growth and sovereignty. He talked a lot about how Trump wants to "break us so he can own us," and yet, so far, details of an ownership agenda are pretty thin. The reality is that Canadians cannot be "masters in our own home" if the home is owned by a U.S. hedge fund. Broadly distributed, local Canadian ownership of our economy and our assets must be a central part of our economic growth strategy. In the Toronto Star, SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn writes that he sees some early, positive signs of such a plan coming from the federal government and spells out what a real ownership agenda that serves "the owners of Canada" would look like.

Canada should lead the world’s middle powers in a collective and overdue weaning from American primacy by establishing a grand new security and economic alliance. As SCP Chair Jon Shell argues in The Hill Times, ten countries including Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., Spain, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands, or the “Core 10," would amount to about the same GDP as the U.S., with significant natural resources, massive buying power - and significant leverage against American economic aggression.

The wrecking ball that Donald Trump has taken to international trade has wounded relations between Hamilton businesses and their American suppliers and customers, reports Eugene Ellman in Hamilton City Magazine. Now, they’re looking east and west to replace traditional links to the south and pushing back. When Trump started pontificating about how Canada should become the 51st state and claiming the United States was subsidizing its northern neighbour, SCP Founder Bill Young and the team responded with Always Canada. Never 51 - part economic populism mixed with methodical policy-making, the series is devoted to the issues of wealth inequality and Canadian sovereignty.