A recently-launched platform could make it easier to invest your money locally. 

Backr, a Halifax-based Community Economic Development Corporation (CEDC), launched a platform at the end of April to help Nova Scotians identify local investment opportunities.

The Backr platform, they say, is a response to the fragmented state of Canada’s community finance ecosystem. 

Subject to regulatory approval, Backr will create a user-friendly digital platform that aggregates all offers from the Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Investment Fund (CEDIF), aiming to make local investing as accessible as online banking. 

Organizers say this approach bridges past provincial efforts with new digital infrastructure.

This initiative could be more than a local investment vehicle. Canadians have been trying to keep their savings close to home for decades. The tools exist. The appetite exists. What has never existed is the infrastructure to make it easy. That is the gap Backr says it’s stepping into — a gap broader than just Nova Scotia, reflecting a national challenge.

Community economic development funds across Canada

In 1999, the Nova Scotia government created CEDIF, a new financial instrument that pools money from individual investors to fund local projects. 

Backers walk away with a 35 per cent tax credit, so long as the money is invested for a minimum of five years.

Some CEDIFs are created directly by local companies or co-operatives to drive investment to their own enterprise, like Just Us! Fair Trade Investment Co-operative, while others, like the Black Business Community Investment Fund, invest in a range of businesses toward a broader aim.

All CEDIF investments are RRSP eligible.

The program was a response to capital flight. In 1999, Nova Scotians contributed about  $600 million annually to their RRSPs, but less than 2 per cent of this amount was reinvested in the province. 

While Nova Scotia is one example, the capital flight problem is national and provinces have responded in different ways.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan residents can invest in local development through Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations (LSVCCs). These funds are sponsored by labour unions or worker organizations. Saskatchewan’s Golden Opportunities Fund and SaskWorks are two examples.

LSVCC investors in Saskatchewan receive a 32.5 per cent combined tax credit (17.5 per cent provincial and 15 per cent federal), must hold for a minimum of eight years, and the investment is RRSP-eligible. These funds invest broadly in small and medium enterprises,  rather than in hyperlocal community projects like CEDIFs.

New Brunswick has taken a different path, building on the Nova Scotia CEDC model rather than the LSVCC structure. 

Its program offers investors a 50 per cent non-refundable provincial income tax credit for investments in approved community economic development corporations — a more generous credit than Nova Scotia’s, aimed at a similar community-rooted mandate.

Quebecers can invest in workers’ funds, Le Fonds de Solidarité FTQ and Fondaction. These funds are also union-sponsored — the FTQ and CSN, respectively.

Over the years, they have grown into massive, professionally managed institutions that operate quasi-independently from their union origins. They are major institutional players in Quebec’s economy.

LSVCC investors buy shares through registered dealers, like any investment product. Most Quebec workers’ fund investment flows through payroll deductions — workers enrol at the source — contributions are deducted before the money ever reaches their account.

This is the key to their scale: the friction of investing is nearly zero. CEDIF investors invest directly in a specific local fund, often through word of mouth or community networks.

Residents of Ontario, B.C. and Alberta have no meaningful provincial tax credit for community or local investment for individual retail investors.

Ontario had an LSVCC program, but wound it down. B.C. has a Small Business Venture Capital Act that offers a 30 per cent credit, but it is aimed at investors putting money into individual eligible small businesses. It requires compliance with securities law prospectus exemptions and is not designed as a community finance instrument accessible to everyday people, unlike CEDIFs.

Alberta has nothing comparable.

Solving community finance infrastructure problems

Backr is not alone in trying to solve the infrastructure problem of community finance. Similarly, Tapestry Community Capital recently launched Weave Community Capital Fund, a $30-million private credit fund designed to lend capital to community bond issuers — charities, non-profits, and cooperatives — across the country.

The parallel with Backr is striking: both initiatives are built on the same diagnosis. The demand is there, the instruments exist — but they are siloed and invisible to most investors.

Weave addresses the silo by aggregating institutional capital and lending it to multiple issuers at once, reducing the financing risk that can stall community bond campaigns before retail investors ever see them.

Backr, on the other hand, addresses it by building a digital marketplace that makes individual CEDIF offerings visible and accessible for the first time.

One initiative de-risks the supply side, the other opens the door for investors. Together, they represent a new generation of infrastructure, taking cues from Quebec’s payroll deductions decades ago, to make local investing the path of least resistance.

In August 2025, Catalyst Community Finance Initiative submitted a pre-budget paper. Among its recommendations: making community investments RRSP-eligible; introducing a federal tax credit for qualifying community capital investments; and establishing federal loan guarantees and accrediting Community Finance Institutions through a national registry.

None of the Catalyst recommendations materialized in this year’s budget. Meanwhile, Backr is building a digital marketplace, and Weave is lending capital to community bond issuers from coast to coast, both aiming to engineer, through platform design, what Quebec achieved through payroll deductions half a century ago. 

The lesson from Quebec is not about unions, but about removing friction; when it’s eliminated, capital gets a serious chance to stay home.