A journalist, a policy wonk, and an entrepreneur walk into a studio...
Join Stephen Marche, Vass Bednar and Jon Shell on Cross Check, Gloves Off’s YouTube-exclusive aftershow. The trio dives deeper into the issues of each Gloves Off episode, bringing a mix of insight, expertise, and strong opinions (held at varying degrees) to their lively discussion.
The Trio
Stephen Marche
Host of Gloves OffStephen is a journalist, novelist and essayist, the author of, among other works, The Next Civil War and On Writing and Failure. He has written features and essays for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail. The Walrus, and many others. He has collaborated with artificial intelligence on the first AI-generated novel reviewed in The New York Times, Death of an Author. His most recent novel, The Last Election, was co-written with Andrew Yang.
Vass Bednar
Managing Director, The Canadian Shield InstituteRecognized as one of Canada’s sharpest policy minds, Vass is known for cutting through corporate jargon and bureaucratic inertia to ask the questions others won’t. With a career spanning think tanks, government, academia, and media, Vass has built a reputation as a fearless and independent voice on the policies that shape our daily lives. In 2020, she co-founded the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program at McMaster University, where she also taught courses on policy design. She is the co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians and writes for The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business where she focuses on the policies, technologies, and corporate forces that shape our everyday lives and economic futures.
Chair, Social Capital PartnersJon Shell
Jon has been an entrepreneur for most of his career, founding companies in both Canada and Australia. After two successful exits, Jon now spends his time advocating for public policy to create a more fair and balanced economy, focused mainly on tax policy, competition policy, and business succession issues. As Managing Director and now Chair of Social Capital Partners, he led the successful effort to establish new policies that will increase employee-ownership in Canada. As co-founder of Save Small Business, he advocated for commercial rent relief during COVID, leading to $10B in support for local businesses. He’s a Director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, Employee Ownership Canada and the Canadian Tax Observatory, and funds the Employee Ownership Research Initiative at Queen’s University.