Lawrence Martin is the author of 10 books, including six national bestsellers. His most recent, Harperland, was nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen award. His other works include two volumes on Jean Chrétien, two on Canada-U.S. relations and three books on hockey.

Can anyone remember dozing off — “oh, not that again” — at yet another mention of the gap between the rich and poor?

Unless you’re a charter member of the bleeding hearts club, the response to the issue has been one big yawn.

By and large, the political left has been overrun on this pet cause by the economic Darwinists. Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the survival-of-the-fittest set and the trickle-downers have been very much in command of the narrative.

For many reasons, however, a change is at hand. Income inequality is finally finding resonance. The recession and the resulting Occupy Movement which garnered much media attention is one reason. Another is that Barack Obama, feeling he can benefit from class warfare with the rich-guy Republicans, is making the gap between rich and poor a top-drawer issue of the Presidential campaign. If re-elected – and there is a good chance he will be – he will have to make good on some of his promises.

Meanwhile, on this side of the border, we have a historic first. The party of the poor, the NDP, is in the role of official opposition party. Over time the New Democrats have tried, to little avail, to address the wealth gap. Now they are in a position to make themselves heard.

Statistics are in their corner. Income inequality has been on a worsening and embarrassing track in this country for a long time. We do badly in comparison to other wealthy nations, particularly those in Europe. Before the mid-1990s, the ratio between the wealthiest and poorest Canadians was 8 to 1. Now it’s up to 10 to 1.

Until recently, politicians haven’t felt much pressure to respond. They’ve been catering to the so-called middle class, not the poverty class. The poor aren’t viewed as a major voting block and they get only lip-service attention in the mainstream media.

But with the new factors at play, there is a heightened profile. One recent poll showed the percentage of the Canadian population concerned about poverty and inequality at 30 per cent. Health care was at 47 percent followed by unemployment at 39 percent and taxes at 37 percent.

A poll by the left-of-centre Broadbent Institute found more than three-quarters of Canadians support raising taxes on the rich. That’s hardly a surprise but it’s a number that might prompt politicians to take note. In Ontario, NDP leader Andrea Horwath is making support for Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s budget dependent on whether he is prepared to include a new tax levy on those earning more than $500,000 per year.

In Ottawa, federal Liberals have raised the inequality issue over the years. Michael Ignatieff did so frequently in the last election but got little traction. On the Conservative side, Senator Hugh Segal has pressed colleagues to modernize income security and come up with a guaranteed annual income plan. Thus far the response has been short of overwhelming.

On Tuesday of this week, Barack Obama renewed his call for a 30-per-cent tax on the wealthy. It will be part of the Democratic Party’s fairness campaign against presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. Romney has great heaps of wealth but paid only 13.9 percent in taxes last year. The momentum and publicity stirred by Obama can hardly hurt efforts by the New Democrats to make the wage gap issue front and centre here.

The Conservatives generally rank quite highly with the public on issues of economic management while the NDP, given its socialist-tinged reputation, does not. The party needs an issue that can dent the Conservative economic advantage. Income inequality could well be the one.

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