Challenging conventional economic and tax policy narratives

Canada's political and bureaucratic leaders are quickly trying to re-wire the federal government to confront a belligerent Unites States, but systems can’t deliver what they were not designed for. This is a time like no other in our history, writes Matthew Mendelsohn, and those making decisions have not been trained for this—because we haven’t experienced anything like this before.  Drawing on his own time in Ottawa, he walks us through five  priority “machinery of government” changes our public service needs to make to meet the threat of an increasingly authoritarian, imperialist America.

About 1.3 million homes in Canada that could be family-owned are held by investors—mostly individuals. In The Star, Matthew Mendelsohn, the Missing Middle Initiative's Mike Moffat and Jon Shell explain how a simple tax change could finance new rental construction while also freeing up homes for families to buy. The policy would temporarily allow investors to defer capital gains taxes if they reinvest proceeds into new purpose-built rentals. Many policy changes are needed to fully address the complex Canadian housing crises, and this could be one that puts Canadian capital to more productive uses.

Gas station giant Parkland is already shedding Canadian employees in the wake of TX-based Sunoco’s recent takeover of the Canadian fuel chain, which owns 15% of our gas stations and a key refinery in Burnaby, B.C. These layoffs were a predictable outcome of Ottawa's decision not to flex its new regulatory muscle through the Canada Investment Act to quash foreign investment deals that pose an economic security threat. As SCP chair Jon Shell writes, the government has not defined a clear strategy to build and maintain Canadian ownership of our assets. Combined with the federal budget’s focus on attracting private capital, there’s a real danger that Ottawa will enable a sell-off of Canadian firms to foreign investors.

The 2026 World Inequality Report is out and the results paint a picture of a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability. As SCP Director of Policy Dan Skilleter writes, Canada is far from immune to these global trends: although our own GDP keeps rising, wealth gains have been concentrated at the very top, while many households struggle to afford food and housing. The top 1% in Canada hold about 29.3% of total wealth, making our country's wealth inequality even more pronounced than our own Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer reports. The good news is, momentum is building in Canada for better wealth data, shedding light on our "Billionaire Blindspot."

The large and well-funded American blogosphere has a pretty wide array of economic voices and ideological camps within the centre-left tent. So big, in fact, that there’s a sub-genre of inter-blog conflict dedicated to people named Matt. Over the years, SCP Director of Policy Dan Skilleter has found it useful to categorize these various different centre-left ideological camps in his head. The categories are not mutually exclusive, and most people probably identify with a few at once. This explainer breaks down each camp's story about what’s wrong with the economy and how they’d prioritize dealing with it.

Our political leaders must be willing to make difficult tradeoffs to rebalance policies toward the young and away from older Canadians, write Jean-François Daoust, Liam O'Toole and Jacob Robbins-Kanter in Policy Options. The broader economic picture for younger Canadians offers little hope, and economic frustration is shown to run hand-in-hand with political alienation. As intergenerational inequality persists and deepens, Canada risks experiencing an even sharper decline in trust in its democratic institutions than what already exists. Building affordable housing and supporting young families are essential first steps in a much-needed generational reset that puts fairness at the centre of Canadian political life.

Blue Jays pride notwithstanding, many of Canada's most iconic companies and brands have been quietly but steadily purchased by foreign entities in recent years. As Danny Parys writes in Policy Options, policymakers should do more to keep Canadian companies in Canadian hands by providing more support to expand financing opportunities, expanding awareness of untraditional ownership models and beefing up Canada’s net-benefit review requirements. These quiet foreign sales not only lead to major frustrations for consumers, but workers also feel the impacts because, as corporate leadership moves further away from the community, so do quality and accountability.

In this reflection on Budget 2025, SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn explains that 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.