For all its alleged flaws the Occupy movement achieved unparalleled success in expanding the conversation about economic inequality. But it might not have gone far enough. According to a recently released report from the Broadbent Institute Canadians don’t recognize the vast disparity in wealth in the country.
The average estimate of 3000 Canadians polled for the institute by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Canada is that the wealthiest 20 per cent possess 55.5 per cent of the pie and the poorest 20 per cent owns six per cent. According to Statistics Canada it’s actually 67.4 per cent and no share respectively.
“There’s still a tendency to view ourselves as a kinder gentler place and have a pride in the progressive institutions that this country has built to protect against things like this” says Jonathan Sas Broadbent Institute’s director of research. “Perhaps Canadians haven’t caught up with the fact that much of that has been eroded.”
Another key finding of the report was that many Canadians support progressive policy prescriptions that can assist in countering inequality ranging from tieing CEO compensation to company performance to increasing taxation on the top tier of income earners. Alberta’s provincial government Sas says is moving in the opposite direction.
“That they’re now talking austerity and spending cuts in a province of such plenty speaks to how distorted the political conversation’s become and buttresses how important this survey is where we have majorities of Canadians of all political stripes saying that they would be interested in progressive approaches to addressing inequality” he says.