Did you go camping this summer? Did you stay, even one night, at a private campground?

Did the owner or her spouse check your family in, help you find your spot, sell you some basic supplies at the campground store, make change for shower tokens?

Did she or he seem “rich” to you?

Did you get the oil changed in your car at a neighbourhood lube shop before you left? Did the franchisee strike you as one of the “wealthy few?”

How about the guy who owned the diner and flipped those great burgers your family looks forward to every year on the way up to the cottage? Did he give off the vibe of a One-Percenter?

How about the growers you bought those amazing carrots from at the farmers’ market in cottage country. Did they seem like uncaring capitalists?

Sure, there are some small business people who have enjoyed tremendous success. They’ve taken risks, made some sacrifices, worked incredibly hard and enjoyed some luck. And now they are comfortable – some, very comfortable.

But before you start buying the class envy the federal Liberals are selling to justify their proposed massive increase in small business taxes, it’s important to know Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are deliberately trying to confuse the “rich” – the One-Percenters – and small businesspeople in our minds.

Our proposals are targeted only at specific loopholes. Most #smallbiz won’t be affected. Look for yourself: https://t.co/wV1DTU2IzZ 8/8 — Bill Morneau (@Bill_Morneau) August 28, 2017

To justify the largest tax grab on the middle class in more than a generation, the federal Liberal government is only too happy to mislead Canadians into believing that small business owners are wealthy tax cheats and greed monsters.

The truth is, two-thirds of Canadian entrepreneurs make less than $73,000 a year before taxes. That’s what a lot of teachers, nurses and police officers make.

One-third make less than $33,000.

There is nothing fair and compassionate about Justin Trudeau’s tax increase and @CPC_HQ will fight this every step of the way! pic.twitter.com/fGH1a6pNoZ — Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) September 8, 2017

And unlike public-sector workers, these ordinary Canadian entrepreneurs don’t have great pensions, paid mat leaves, paid vacations, a dozen paid sick days a year and a host of other perks and benefits.

Out of the $73,000 they make before taxes, they have to save enough to enjoy a reasonable retirement. Do they sound like tax thieves to you?

Trudeau and Morneau haven’t, themselves, tried to confuse the small business owners they are about to squeeze with the infamous One-Percenters, but they have been only too happy to have others perpetuate the myth that small businesspeople are super rich.

Yet here are two realities that fly in the face of myths many resentful voters harbour towards entrepreneurs and the “rich.”

Most One-Percenters work for salaries – meaning they are executives or senior bureaucrats. They are not small business owners, nor do they live off investments, stocks and bonds.

And here’s the real shocker: They are almost as likely to be in the public sector as the private.

George Fallis, an economist at Toronto’s York University points out that in addition to senior partners in large law firms, specialist doctors, dentists and other professionals “most judges are in the one percent.” So are “the senior administrators of our hospitals and our universities.”

The largest provinces’ health care systems will all have dozens of One-Percenters on staff, perhaps hundreds.

“They are also the senior civil service and the top people in many quasi-public agencies,” Fallis points out. “The leaders of big-city museums, opera and ballet companies and symphonies are also One-Percenters.”

But only a tiny fraction of the true One-Percenters are about to get whacked for considerably more taxes the way the Liberals plan to hit the campground owner, diner owner, auto shop owner and farmers you met this summer.

The Trudeau-Morneau tax grab is all about government greed for revenues; nothing at all about fairness for the middle class.