In Christian scripture, Jesus tells his disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven. These words came to me after chatting with a wealthy investment adviser, who is furious about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed tax increase for rich Canadians. I was tempted to say that while I’m sorry for his loss, his outlook is utterly sinful.

My financial friend (we’ll call him Roger, since he asked not to be named) is incensed that Trudeau plans to raise income taxes on Canadians who earn at least $200,000. Roger calls this an unfair punishment of people who work hard, and says higher taxes will compel the so-called 1 per cent to stop working or, worse, to leave the country. Let them go on their first-class flights and never return.

Roger informed me that he paid about $340,000 in income taxes last year — he says he earned about $800,000 during that period. “Why should I keep working when the government just keeps taking it away?” Roger fumed. The real question is why the working poor in this country should keep offering their labour for peanuts, while Roger worries about managing his fortune. Poor Canadians should be threatening to leave, but that idea is itself a great luxury.

According to the most recent census, the median household income for a Canadian family was $76,000. Given that Roger made six times this amount (after taxes) by himself last year, he can likely afford to live in any neighbourhood in the country, or to leave altogether. Meanwhile, the one million Canadians who earn minimum wage or less are worrying about the cost of travelling to jobs that barely sustain them.

Having a disproportionate share of our country’s wealth and influence is apparently not enough for people like Roger — they are jealous that poor people get all the sympathy, and want their share of that too. Like the protagonists of an Ayn Rand novel, aggrieved rich folks take the Marxist idea of a general strike and apply it to themselves. They threaten to deprive us of their presumably unique talents and leadership if we dare to stop them from becoming even richer.

Canadian financial guru and columnist Tim Cestnick shared such a complaint earlier this year from a reader who objected to higher taxes. “My wife and I pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes,” the commenter said. “We don’t need to work. We can quit right this minute, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Nobody will take our place, the revenue flow to the government will simply stop.”

It’s too bad that so many of us work as hard as the wealthiest Canadians, yet we cannot afford to stop working for even a couple of weeks without losing what little we have. If only we had the entitled swagger of people like Roger, who assured me that if taxes keep rising for rich folks, “we’ll leave, we’ll stop working, we’ll go underground. We’ll find another way.” Poor people have the moral claim to this defiant attitude, but seem too worn out and afraid to own it.

Roger even warned me that he may stop giving to charity if his taxes go up. A man who prides himself on hard work should know that no one wants his charity, and that it will never be enough in a country where entire communities lack access to clean drinking water or suitable housing. The selective kindness of rich, under-taxed people is an unacceptable response to systemic inequality.

We treat the rich with pragmatic deference. We see them, as U.S. comedian Bill Maher once quipped, as “some sort of rare exotic animal — don’t startle them or they’ll fly away!” We even quote Christ, a revolutionary who stood with the underdog, as having said “the poor are always with us,” as if he was stating the inevitable.

Jesus didn’t say it’s hard for rich people to enter heaven because they’re evil, but because they still want more while others have nothing. The rich can afford to pay more and the poor can’t afford to stay poor. I’m with JC on this one: if you are rich and have no more desire to share, then to hell with you.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every Thursday.