Never 51

Under economic threat from the Trump administration, Social Capital Partners launches a Special Series of policy ideas that support Canadian economic sovereignty, advance ownership for Canadians and reduce dependence on the U.S. Our CEO, Matthew Mendelsohn, explains how we need to seize this opportunity to advance the interests of workers, small businesses, the economically vulnerable and young Canadians who have known for a long time that our economy is not working well for them.

When U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch a full-blown trade war with its closest ally, many Canadians felt as if their best friend had suddenly turned around and stabbed them in the back. The Star spoke with economists, academics and other experts, including SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn, about how the country should best navigate this new era of Trump's isolationism, and found there are realistic steps we can take to reduce our dependence on the States.

Canadians are more vulnerable to Trump’s economic warfare today because our housing system is in crisis and has left many Canadians without affordable places to live. Some of our own bad policy choices have put us in this position of vulnerability. We've got three housing policy ideas we want the team at Missing Middle to look into.

Living next to a superpower run by oligarchs is not where we expected to be 20 years ago, says Matthew Mendelsohn. But it’s where we are. Pretending otherwise doesn’t serve our interests. Canada is big enough, powerful enough, smart enough and rich enough to build a stronger, more independent economy if we start now.