Never 51

In this election, Canadians are looking for a leader who will stand up to economic threats from our mercurial and adversarial neighbour. But how, Matthew Mendelsohn asks, will the ideas on offer help workers, regular people, not-for-profits and smaller and medium-sized businesses transition to the emerging new world order? Yes, Canada needs economic growth, but it needs to be the kind that enriches working Canadians, not just not just large financial and corporate interests.

A combination of rising U.S. tariffs, a weakening Canadian dollar and a generation of business owners nearing retirement has created the perfect storm for a wave of foreign takeovers. SCP's Michelle Arnold, Futurpreneur's Karen Greve Young and Venture for Canada's Scott Stirrett on how a few targeted policy changes could enable aspiring entrepreneurs to buy existing businesses, keeping jobs and ownership local while injecting fresh energy into our Canadian economy.

From fighter jets to TikTok, nothing is off the table when Canadians talk about how best to counter Trump's economic assault on Canada. SCP brings you some creative, crowdsourced policy ideas gathered by our Chair Jon Shell on a recent LinkedIn post. More evidence that new voices entering the policy discussion will help us get through the current crisis and emerge in a more hopeful place.

With Canada’s sovereignty at stake, we must invest in every approach to keeping Canadian businesses in Canadian hands. If we match the U.K.'s success in incentivizing employee-ownership conversion, we would see 300 Canadian companies sold to their workers each year. SCP Chair Jon Shell and Employee Ownership Canada CEO Michael Ras explain how very few policies promise as powerful an outcome.

For Canada to build a more resilient economy, we must secure local assets, democratize the economy and ensure wealth circulates within communities rather than being extracted by distant, corporate interests. In The Conversation, SCP Fellow Audrey Jamal and Heather M. Hachigian write that a promising solution lies in community wealth building.

Today, Canada’s main streets are more likely to feature American chains and less likely to be locally owned. We already face economic assault from the south—SCP's CEO Matthew Mendelsohn and Fellow Rachel Wasserman on why we cannot accept unchecked serial acquisitions as a tactic in this economic war against us and what we can do about it.

If Canada were to build a civil defence program on the scale of those in Sweden or Finland, the numbers would be game-changing. As MASS LBP principal Peter MacLeod lays out in The Tyee, Canadians must be prepared to defend our sovereignty and citizens have roles to play.

Despite the fact that governments, business leaders, workers and Canadians all say they want to be less economically vulnerable, there is a real risk that, two years from now, even more of our businesses and assets will be owned by U.S. investors. SCP's CEO Matthew Mendelsohn and Chair Jon Shell propose four ideas to prevent American finance from gobbling up the Canadian economy.

Trump’s tariff threats have opened the door for economic thinking that pushes Canada way past business as usual. In Policy Options, Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project Keldon Bester argues that, from airlines to banks, fixing Canada’s competition problem starts with smarter domestic reforms.

Canada’s value proposition aligns with the values most Canadians hold, even if we execute on them imperfectly: diversity, inclusion, freedom, equality, democracy, respect and reconciliation. SCP's CEO, Matthew Mendelsohn, on why he would rather invest in a country that strives to uphold those values and build an inclusive, democratic capitalist system than invest in the uncertain, volatile mess that is the United States right now.