At a time when the prime minister has convinced Canadians that huge nation-building projects are needed for economic sovereignty, one group is advocating to use the same momentum to build community-level economic resilience.
Hamilton is hurting. Again.
The Ontario city’s steel-industry icon has been thrust into the middle of a battle between the federal government and Stelco’s US owner. The bottom line is some 500 jobs may be lost. As the city grapples with deindustrialization, the downtown is plagued by concerns about public safety, homelessness, addiction, and vacant storefronts.
The city, the province, and the federal government have come to the rescue of an industry battered by tariffs and market downturns, offering skills retraining and business investments. The 75-year-old Hamilton Community Foundation continues its work on social supports and affordable housing in the city.
But Adam Spence sees something much more ambitious. He sees the unlocking of resources and the leveraging of investments that can bring relief and allow cities to prosper, providing affordable housing and jobs and meeting challenges not just along Hamilton’s King and Main streets, but King and Main streets and beyond throughout the country. He sees multiple more millions of dollars to be leveraged beyond the work being done by foundations and non-profits in cities like the Ontario steel capital.
For Spence, it’s all about moving hearts, minds, and wallets. “Instead of single projects and single millions, maybe we can get into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in capital,” he says. “What if government was able to put in de-risking financing to these funds so that other institutional investors, beyond Hamilton Community Foundation – maybe other credit unions, labour leaders, or organizations that have significant assets or pension funds – could commit significant dollars towards investing in housing or businesses in Hamilton?” The city can move to a greater place of resilience over time, says Spence, the co-founder and CEO of SVX, a Toronto-based impact-investing firm, who spent many years in Hamilton.
In a time when Prime Minister Mark Carney has convinced the nation that huge nation-building projects are needed for the country’s economic sovereignty, Spence and Michelle Baldwin, the co–executive director of Impact United Academy, are spearheading an effort to use the same muscle and momentum to build community resilience and sovereignty in this country.
Putting community resilience in the budget
In September, the day after Carney’s Canada Investment Summit brought some of the world’s industrial titans and deep-pocketed investors to Toronto, Spence and Baldwin, on behalf of 500 people from 300 organizations, released an open letter to the prime minister and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne calling on the Liberal government to build community resilience into future budgets as another needed plank in nation-building.
The signatories to the letter include philanthropic foundations, social capital venture funds, credit unions, co-ops, university executives, senators, and Indigenous organizations. They come from coast to coast to coast and collectively hold more than $235 billion in assets. “Your government is moving with urgency to build major infrastructure, diversify trade, strengthen strategic industries and remove barriers within Canada,” the letter states. “These priorities are critical. Alongside them, Canada also needs a national architecture to help build community-level economic resilience.”
In a release accompanying the letter, the movement said: “Nation-building is not only pipelines, energy grids and data centres. It is also whether a family can afford a home, whether a Main Street can survive and thrive and whether a First Nation can finance its own infrastructure.”
Nation-building is not only pipelines, energy grids and data centres.
Community Resilience declaration
The Community Resilience declaration, which stemmed from the work of the Victoria Forum, a leading venue for progressive and inclusive discussion founded in 2017 by the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business, urges the government to take action on three pillars:
- Establishment of a $3-billion community-resilience fund to capitalize community-finance institutions, build local and sector-wide capacity, and finance initiatives. It believes the fund can leverage $15 billion in additional capital.
- Tax credits, guarantees, and targeted program and regulatory changes to unlock private, philanthropic, and retail capital to give Canadians practical ways to invest in their own community.
- Establishment of a framework legislation giving community-finance institutions a statutory definition and public accreditation framework, establishing community-level economic resilience as a national priority.
No one involved in this effort opposes Carney’s efforts to diversify trade or build nation-defining projects. They see social resilience as complementary to that effort. They stress they are not looking for a government handout because they are bringing resources to the table.
It may appear ambitious, but the proposal is really Canada catching up to its peers. We lag far behind the United States, with its long-standing Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the United Kingdom, with its Community Investment Tax Relief and National Outcomes funds. The US fund invests federal dollars alongside private-sector capital in “mission-driven financial institutions” that support economically disadvantaged US communities. It has an annual budget of US$2.1 billion, including grants and tax concessions, and survived Donald Trump’s efforts to cut its grants by two-thirds because it was practising “immigration, gender and climate radicalism.”
From piecemeal solutions to an overarching strategy
Canada offers piecemeal solutions to distressed and challenged urban areas, not an overarching strategy. But the country doesn’t lack capital. It lacks the architecture to get the money where it is needed.
“The people making the real difference in solving persistent social challenges in communities have the least access to resources,” says Ryan Turnbull, the Liberal member of Parliament for Whitby, Ontario. “That is just unjust. The economy should be rewarding the people who are trying to solve problems and use capital to benefit the greater population.”
The economy should be rewarding the people who are trying to solve problems and use capital to benefit the greater population.
Ryan Turnbull, Liberal member of Parliament
Canada already holds some of the largest pools of capital in the world. Retirement savings, pension funds, credit union balances, and foundation endowments run in the trillions. Canadian foundations are stewards of some $135 billion, but a promised federal review of the 5% disbursement quota has not yet begun.
A backgrounder created by the Community Resilience campaign outlines the multipliers of community investment. Citing Statistics Canada data, it says that every $10 million invested in community finance creates the equivalent of 158 full-time jobs and that every dollar generates $1.20 of gross domestic product. A federal tax incentive of $50 million annually would mobilize close to $900 million in community investment, the proponents claim, and the outcomes save the federal coffers. One unit of affordable housing valued at $200,000 is recovered in less than four years, the coalition says, through costs saved on healthcare, justice, shelters, and social services.
Turnbull, a social-innovation consultant first elected to the House of Commons in 2019, is the parliamentary secretary to the finance minister. He describes himself as the coalition’s internal champion of the cause. “Sometimes in the social-innovation field, we get stuck talking in ways that are little bit ‘jargonish’ and the public doesn’t relate to,” he concedes. When he talks to voters, Turnbull says, no one talks about “social resilience.” Instead, they frame it as concerns about local businesses going under, empty storefronts on Main Street, or the Legion that can’t get financing to fix a crack in the roof or the local church that can’t find capital to properly serve their communities, he says. That’s in urban Canada. Rural and remote communities are swimming against an even stronger current when it comes to accessing capital, he says.
His government’s “build big” agenda includes hundreds of billions of spending on oil and gas infrastructure, investments in roads and critical mineral mining, establishment of a Major Projects Office, and the streamlining of permitting approvals. All necessary expenditures, Turnbull says. But social resilience is in the same league as those big projects and deserves the same level of attention, he says. “If we build big and bold, it’s going to help create a strong Canadian economy,” the MP says. “But who does it benefit? And is it bringing all communities along? We want to advance a strong Canadian economy for everyone, not just some.”
Convincing funders to embrace community financing
Non-profits, charities, social innovators, entrepreneurs, and small to medium-sized enterprises all need access to the capital they need to contribute to the Build Canada Strong agenda, Turnbull says. One challenge? Convincing foundations that instead of investing in safer, more conservative assets, they should be look at freeing up more of their assets to community financing.
Tim Draimin, a longtime leader in the non-profit sector and past chair of Social Innovation Canada, has long experience in working on the social resilience file and is advising the group while bringing some historical perspective to the effort. “This is a really bold experiment to try to bring so many disparate players together to articulate a more focused and coherent agenda that hopefully will gain strong visibility with the current government,” he says.
One challenge is just changing the mindset and the competencies on investment committees.
Tim Draimin, Social Innovation Canada
Draimin is also walking them through challenges, including the question of the estimated $135 billion in foundation endowments. Most foundations have very conservative, status quo investment committees. There has been some progress in bringing those who are aware of investment opportunities in community financing on to investment committees, he says. “One challenge,” he says, “is just changing the mindset and the competencies on investment committees that helps the boards feel really comfortable that they can move in this direction.’’
But he also points to a major difference between the social resilience movement and the Carney build-big agenda that should appeal to the sector. The latter is a top-down initiative, while social resilience is a bottom-up movement, “something that seems to be lacking in this government.” One option on the table, according to Turnbull, is government de-risking impact investing, by returning any money invested in a project that fails.
Baldwin says that social resilience meets foundations where they are by dealing with affordable housing, food sustainability, or Indigenous reconciliation, core issues for the foundation movement at the moment. “We heard loud and clear that citizens would have to see themselves in this,” she says. That has resonance with the sector, she says, even if the instruments to move those assets are not yet there.
Indeed, the signatories to the open letter include the Laidlaw Foundation, the Cambia Development Foundation, Community Foundations of Canada, Definity Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, the David Suzuki Foundation, Philanthropic Foundations Canada, the McConnell Foundation, the Trottier Family Foundation, and Inspirit Foundation.
The early response from government has been positive, but the coordination in this movement has come together so recently, it had little or no chance of getting a nod in the government’s November budget. Finance Minister Champagne did announce initiatives on housing, a plan to end homelessness, and other targeted measures on affordability, but there was no grand social plan.
Advocating for social resilience
Draimin and other key players acknowledge that the case has not been fully made, and that work must continue beyond this budget to connect social resilience with Carney’s economic agenda.
This year’s Victoria Forum annual meeting in August drew a gathering of 860, up from 300 in 2024 and 500 in 2025. Two half-days were set aside for those interested in building a community-financing agenda that could be presented to government. Baldwin says those sessions drew an enthusiastic, diverse crowd that included foundations asking about their investments and endowments. Graham Singh, the CEO of the Montreal-based Relèven, calls those break-out sessions an example of the social sector at its best, when everyone “rolled up their sleeves” to decide to put something before the government so it could understand what the sector was doing.
We know this is a long game, and we are prepared to continue the momentum.
Michelle Baldwin, Impact United Academy
Much of the early work involved sifting through a stack of pre-budget submissions from the charitable and non-profit sector to the parliamentary finance committee, seeking common community-financing initiatives. Turnbull says there were about 150 submissions. A small working group gave up a lot of its summer to build this runway to its present position, and that legwork was key. “All that happened since June,” Baldwin says. “We know this is a long game, and we are prepared to continue the momentum.’’
Turnbull says he has done everything he can from his end. Caucus is aware of this. He has spoken to cabinet, the prime minister, and the finance minister. Officials in bureaucracy have seen the proposals. “It’s under consideration by this government. It takes years sometimes to get things like this. But we have broadened the discussion, and there is a huge stakeholder engagement.”
But some, like Singh, whose charity restores and repurposes underused faith properties into community hubs or affordable housing, don’t buy the argument that the government did not have time. He thinks the Carney government simply doesn’t understand the charitable and non-profit sector and its value. He supports the social resilience work he is part of but wonders about the strategy of putting forth such a large vision. “The risk of a bigger vision like this is that there are more pitfalls and more opportunities to be told ‘no,’” he says. “I think that’s what we may have experienced.” There is value in debating whether it might be more effective for the sector to break things into smaller pieces it can get over the finish line, he says.
As our economy changes to one largely shaped by AI and robots . . . we’re going to come to value the non-profit and social sector more.
Graham Singh, Relèven
Turnbull points to an ongoing problem in the sector: it comes to budget time with a laundry list of requests, while more successful sectors and interests approach the process with narrow, focused asks. “We’ve got to speak with one voice,” he says, but he sees improvement. “We’re doing a better job at it than a year ago.”
Work remains to refine the message and ensure that people understand what a community-resilience movement can bring to the country. “But I think community resilience is something people can understand,” Turnbull says. “I think they want to see stronger communities and have their community be part of a Build Canada Strong effort.”
While there was no budget win this year, frustration quickly turns to resolve. Singh says a setback isn’t going to discourage him from going ahead with his work with Relèven and won’t shake his belief in the value of the social sector. “As our economy changes to one largely shaped by AI and robots,” he says, “one of the absolutely critical components in society will be those who create trust, loyalty, and care in the local neighbourhoods. As we watch these shifts happen in the economy, we’re going to come to value the non-profit and social sector more.”
