Ed Broadbent, one of Canada’s most respected progressive sages, sat down with the CCPA’s Trish Hennessy to talk about the Canada he grew up in and how it’s changed over his lifetime. During this candid conversation -- in Mr. Broadbent’s own Ottawa backyard -- he reflects on the profound shift away from equality.

When he was growing up, he says, “the name of the game was to have more and more equality.” It was an unstated assumption, and it was accepted by all the leaders of the main political parties when he was first elected to Parliament. Since then, he says: “We’ve had a terrible assault on democratic equality. Equality has, since the Greeks, been the key value associated with democracy.”