The purpose of this paper is to stimulate and support a national discussion on the implications of extreme income inequality, and how we should, as a society, be responding.
Democratic politics, at its best, is about choosing what kind of society we want to live in.
Today, we are moving in the wrong direction.
There is widespread and growing agreement that Canada, among many other advanced industrial countries, has a serious and growing inequality problem. Experts at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (the OECD) and the Conference Board of Canada have shown that we have become a much more unequal and divided society over the past generation. The incomes of the top 1% have exploded, while middle-class wages have stagnated for over thirty years.
This sort of inequality has profound implications for the quality of our democracy, for social and environmental sustainability, for our individual and social well-being, and for economic stability and performance at the global and the national level.
This synthesis paper shows why inequality matters, sets out the facts on growing inequality, summarizes some of its key causes, and concludes with ideas about how we can build a more equal and democratic Canada.
‘Towards a More Equal Canada: A Report on Canada’s Economic & Social Inequality’ is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
