Over the past 20-plus years, incomes in Canada have increased nearly twice as fast for earners in the top 10 per cent as for those in the lowest 10 per cent. The share of the top 1 per cent is now the third highest among member-countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) after the United States and the United Kingdom.
Voltaire, the pre-revolutionary writer, political scientist and wit, observed that: “Governments need both shepherds and butchers.” We have got the shepherds. Bring on the butchers! Let’s be done with the sacred cows standing in the way, sapping our vitality! We need new champions to propel us to the next stages of development, which is about achieving fresh integrated economic, social and environmental harmony.