Changing narratives

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. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.

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. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.

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.

Trade-war chaos and confusion are creating a perfect storm for sellers' inflation—when companies with market control choose to hike prices to gouge consumers and grow their profits when they have the chance. As SCP Fellow Kaylie Tiessen writes, this profit-led inflation often hides behind other drivers and can blindside us if we’re not watching closely. There are good reasons to accept some tariff-related price increases—elbows up, right? But she outlines three ways we can stop opportunistic sellers from using this trade chaos to mask their profiteering. We can stop powerful companies from exploiting confusion and weak oversight so working people don't pay the price while profits soar.

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.

As our new government pursues growth and a nation-building agenda, we should remember this lesson from history: too often, we build and invest, only to sell off our assets and resources to the highest foreign bidder, leaving us economically vulnerable. In this moment of extreme peril, SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn asks how we should “build, baby, build” in a way that doesn’t merely accelerate the trends towards consolidation of wealth and deeper economic dependence. Canada has everything we need to emerge stronger from this period of geopolitical disruption if we put economic sovereignty and broad access to wealth-building at the heart of our agenda.

We predicted that American investors would be looking to buy up Canadian businesses and assets, and that this would threaten our national security and economic sovereignty. Now Canada has to make a call on whether to kill Texas-based energy giant Sunoco's takeover of Parkland Corporation. In the Toronto Star, SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn and Chair Jon Shell ask: do we want to be owned by American billionaires, to work for them and have our wealth stripped away to pad bank accounts in New York and Dallas? If we really want Canada to remain ours, they argue, then we need to think and act like it.

CBC News profiles new advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires Canada who say their organization is looking for broad changes to wealth taxes and capital gains in this country. The group says it believes lower-income citizens often pay tax on much of their income, while wealthier investors can leverage dividends, investments and capital gains to change what they pay and how. Chair Claire Trottier asks: when are we going to recognize that massive growing runaway wealth inequality is a danger to democracy?"

Prime Minister Mark Carney has a monumental task to lead Canadians through the turmoil of a second Donald Trump term, while also addressing various crises: affordability, housing, toxic drugs and health care, to name a few. For Truthout, Nora Loreto interviewed SCP Fellow Silas Xuereb about the crises that loomed over Canada's recent federal election and one fundamental cause that was never clearly identified: concentrated corporate power.