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Thewage gap between the top and bottom income earners in Canada is widening, largely due to tax policies, a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said Monday.

The report found that the top 10% of Canadians in 2008 earned $103,500 on average, 10 times higher than the bottom 10%, who made an average of $10,260.

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This is up from a ratio of 8 to 1 in the early 1990s.

The top 1% of Canadians, meanwhile, saw their share of the country’s total income increase to 13.3% in 2007 from only 8.1% in 1980.

And the very richest of Canadians, the top 0.1%, had their share of income more than double, to 5.3% from 2%.The results suggest Canada needs to update its tax policies as taxes and tax benefits in particular have become ineffective in wage redistribution, the OECD said.

“The growing share of income going to top earners means that this group now has a greater capacity to pay taxes,” the report said. “In this context governments may re-examine the redistributive role of taxation to ensure that wealthier individuals contribute their fair share.”