Preparing for SCP's next strategic phase

April 23, 2024| Blog
By Matthew Mendelsohn

Social Capital Partners has a long history of investing in people and projects that create more economic opportunity in Canada. Recently, our focus has been on establishing more avenues for working Canadians to build wealth through ownership.

We will continue this work by supporting efforts to make the new legislation around Employee Ownership Trusts effective so that it can be used to support business transition and build wealth for workers.

But we will also deepen this work. In SCP’s upcoming strategic phase, we will build on our experience advancing employee ownership by focusing on additional issues which impact the ability of working Canadians to build wealth and economic security. We will look for projects, policies and investments that will lead to more democratic control of the economy and confront the wealth concentration that is plaguing most democratic societies.

We will do this because the evidence is clear that extreme wealth inequality leads to a concentration of economic and political power, which has negative implications for social cohesion, economic resilience, community well-being, human happiness and democratic stability. We don’t think these issues are getting the attention they demand.

Wealth today is being created in very different ways than it was 20 years ago. Capitalism is changing dramatically, with wealth and value creation driven by American-based tech platforms, private equity buy-out funds, oligopolistic markets, geopolitical competition, wealth sheltering strategies, intellectual property, Artificial Intelligence, financialization, and state-led economic activity, amongst others (whew!).

And yet, in Canada, our public narratives about economic policy are trapped in the long, boring debates of the 1990s. Too many of those influencing decisions and leading discussions don’t seem to understand how our economy works anymore.

“The evidence is clear that extreme wealth inequality leads to a concentration of economic and political power, which has negative implications for social cohesion, economic resilience, community well-being, human happiness and democratic stability. We don’t think these issues are getting the attention they demand.”

Thankfully, there are many ideas around the world about how to confront this moment so that capitalism is more inclusive and works for more people, and many people in Canada with ideas about how to break down the barriers to wealth creation that many people experience. At SCP, we hope we can use our knowledge, experience, licence and insight to convene, provoke, and shape an intentional conversation about the way the economy works and who it serves.

And we will focus on practical solutions. We remain humble because, like all those who try new approaches, we have often failed on our path to innovate.  But we are comfortable taking risks, trying things that others can’t and telling the truth as we see it. We might not know all the answers, but we work hard to make sure that we ask the right questions:

  • How can we get more capital going to the people and places where it does the most good and produce systems-level change?
  • How can we reshape public policy frameworks to change incentives and produce better outcomes for working Canadians?
  • How can we scale the initiatives that we know are already working?

We genuinely believe that good choices in the coming years can create more opportunities for more people to build wealth, which will lead to a more inclusive capitalism and a more resilient democracy.

The issues we are confronting are enormous. We hope our friends, networks and communities can help us identify where we can have the most transformative, enduring impact in the coming years and join us on our journey.

Changing narratives Economic policy Wealth inequality What we’re exploring

Share with a friend

Related reading

BlogExplainer
map showing on open laptop computer with hands typing

Mapping the economic centre-left

The large and well-funded American blogsphere 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.

BlogIn the media

How intergenerational inequality threatens trust in democracy | Policy Options

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.

News releaseThe Ownership Solution

Smith School of Business launches new Employee Ownership Research Initiative

Smith School of Business at Queen's University is launching Canada's first-ever research initiative focused on deepening Canada’s knowledge and understanding of a powerful succession model that can enhance outcomes for owners, employees and communities: employee ownership. With funding support from Jon Shell, Chair of Social Capital Partners and a board member at Employee Ownership Canada, the Employee Ownership Research Initiative (EORI) will be housed in Smith’s Centre for Entrepreneurship Innovation & Social Impact (CEISI). The initiative will shape a made-in-Canada approach to employee ownership and create a multi-disciplinary network of academics, researchers, practitioners and businesses to fill gaps in relevant data, expertise and business-oriented resources to support employee-ownership activities across the country.

Skip to content