Social Capital Partners

Despite the polycrisis there is good in the world. This year was something else, but we hold out hope for a brighter 2025. Looking back, Social Capital Partners is really grateful for four things: 🫶 The employee ownership era is truly underway 🫶 Real progress on competition  🫶 Our broadening network of creative, ambitious thinkers (hint, hint, that's YOU) 🫶 An emerging consensus that governments must confront wealth inequality and the concentrated ownership of our economy... otherwise we’re all cooked! Read the details and find out what we're manifesting for 2025: https://lnkd.in/gW884Z8e #HolidayLetter #Joy #Progress #Peace

Should PE be allowed to own children’s homes serving some of society’s most vulnerable? “We have decision making that’s about meeting debt requirements and managing the profits of shareholders,” John Pearce, corporate director of children and young people’s services at Durham County Council, told a parliamentary evidence session… If we can learn anything from PE in long-term care homes for the elderly- higher mortality rates, higher fees, lower quality of care and 50 percent more likely to be placed on antipsychotic medication. Sounds like these children could be in much better hands. A great article by Sabah Meddings, which highlights the conflicts between private capital and the care economy. We need more journalists telling these stories. Private Equity Stakeholder Project Social Capital Partners Armine Yalnizyan

Huge research from fellow Social Capital Partners fellow Antoine Genest-Gregoire! With all the whining and complaining about the increased capital gains tax, guess what?! ONLY 0.16% of tax filers had a capital gain in excess of $250K. In Canada it's not the 1%... it's LESS than 0.1%! And these tax filers represent 58.3% of ALL capital gains! This policy will benefit 99.84% of Canadians. Sounds like they got it right to me! It's time for Canada's wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes. Here's a crazy thought - maybe we could properly fund our post-secondary institutions with tax dollars, like we did before we slashed their funding and began to rely on international students to balance budgets?

📈 Food insecurity continues to grow in Quebec for the third year in a row. 

🌎How do we build an economy that works for people and planet? The problems we face today - from climate change to inequality - aren't market failures to be fixed. They require a new economics oriented around shared purpose and collective action. In their historic and powerful dialogue, Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley advocated for a reimagining of economics for the common good, featuring a special message from Pope Francis. 📺Watch the film here: https://lnkd.in/eAmcGkxH

Who are the taxpayers affected by Canada's capital gains reform? How many are there? How high are their gains, where do they live and how old are they? Answers to these questions and more from Social Capital Partners Fellow Antoine Genest-Gregoire and Chaire en fiscalité et en finances publiques in today's Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) Policy Options 👇 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gPUUt5te

Health and economic inequality are deeply related. If we want better health outcomes, people need economic stability, decent work, affordable housing and food security. We welcome Social Capital Partners Fellow Ryan Meili , a leader in identifying and addressing linkages between upstream investments in services, health outcomes, economic inequality and democratic resilience in Canada. Ryan is a family physician, tuberculosis consultant and former politician in Saskatoon with a focus on health equity and healthy public policy. The evidence is clear that extreme wealth inequality is bad for just about everyone and everything, including the economy and human health. Widespread economic insecurity and anxiety do not lead to sustainable, shared prosperity. “We are very fortunate to have Ryan’s wisdom and experience as an author, doctor and political leader,” says SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn. “The richest societies aren’t always the healthiest or happiest, particularly when they are characterized by extreme inequality. We shouldn’t just care about growth or GDP – these need to be situated within the context of human health and well-being.” 👓 Learn more about Ryan’s work: https://lnkd.in/ggxKMmzn 🔗 Get to know our Fellows at: https://lnkd.in/gWeGECDj #SocialCapitalPartners #SCPFellows #HealthEquity

Our tax system is too complex and doesn’t tax wealth and capital equitably.  We welcome Antoine Genest-Gregoire as a Social Capital Partners Fellow who is helping make our tax system fairer and more transparent for working people. Antoine is an assistant professor at the Department of Taxation at Université de Sherbrooke and fellow of the Chaire en fiscalité et en finances publiques, with expertise on incentives, compliance, simplification and capital gains in the tax system. Tax policy is key for both economic growth and equity, but our system isn’t achieving either as well as it should.     As debates about tax reform heat up, we need to listen to principled, informed voices like Antoine’s – rather than the consultants and pundits funded by wealthy interests accumulating even more tax-sheltered wealth. “Antoine is one of a new generation of researchers who understands the tax system and is bringing serious academic rigour to our collective understanding of how it actually operates,” says SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn. “His research tells us how people actually use the tax system so we can make important choices to improve it.”      👓 Read Antoine’s work: https://lnkd.in/g_mEeTH2 🔗 Get to know our Fellows at: https://lnkd.in/gWeGECDj    #SocialCapitalPartners #SCPFellows #TaxPolicy 

We need aggressive action on many fronts of the housing crisis – including using financial tools to build more housing that is affordable and that people want to live in.   We welcome Social Capital Partners Fellow Aleeya Velji, a creative leader who understands how to mobilize and deploy capital and undertake impact investing to get affordable housing built.   Aleeya is the Founder and CEO of Enfin Impact, a strategy consultancy. Her focus is on building human and financial capital, regenerative real estate and impact measurement.   Home ownership has been the primary pathway to wealth and asset building for working people in Canada and that path has become much steeper for young people and the middle class. Affordable housing of all types is crucial to people’s economic and social well-being, because it’s impossible for a community to be vibrant, healthy and productive if people can’t afford to live there. “The ways in which we finance, build and invest in residential real estate have contributed to the crises we’re in,” says SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn. “Treating real estate as an investment class is one of the main reasons appropriate housing is out of reach for so many young people. If we really care about economic growth and quality of life, we need to change our approach to financing housing.”   👓 Read more about Aleeya’s work: https://lnkd.in/gmj5_gK9 🔗 Get to know our Fellows at: https://lnkd.in/gWeGECDj #SocialCapitalPartners #SCPFellows #AffordableHousing #ResponsibleEconomy 

Would you rather be born in Belgium or the US if you had no idea how wealthy your parents were and you only had these data to look at? The answer seems obvious to me. I'm on Team Belgium. But it seems like most of the folks that get platformed to talk about the economy in Canada would prefer the US. Really take a look at those American numbers (mean and median): $565K and $112K. The US has a growing billionaire class, but most people still have almost no wealth. Why do so many of those who claim to speak for corporate Canada fetishize the American economic model? As Canada navigates very challenging economic issues, it is useful to have a policy goal in mind. Policies that make it possible for the working and middle classes to build wealth should be a goal. Policies that promote polarization, inequality and precarity should be discouraged. I guess I'm also on Team Obvious.