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
Share with a friend
Related reading
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.
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.