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While top income earners have actually lost ground under the Conservatives, Canada is still significantly less egalitarian than it was during the early 1980s.

The Citizen’s associate business editor James Bagnallexplains how we got here and why it’s so difficult for governments to change things.

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It may be one of the strangest aspects of the federal election campaign to date: Liberal leader Justin Trudeau pledging to hike income taxes for anyone earning more than $200,000 annually.

The odd part is not that he is taking aim at people such as himself – the top one per cent of Canadians in terms of income. Rather, it’s that the policy would attempt to reverse what happened during the Liberals’ lengthy stretch in office from 1993 to 2006.

That’s when the “One Percenters” substantially improved their relative position, as their share of the country’s after-tax income surged from 6.3 per cent to 9.7 per cent – a far bigger jump than any other major income group.

The Liberals, under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, did not set out to produce this result. They simply pushed ahead with an agenda that favoured economic growth, which was helped along by a dramatic economic recovery in the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner. The rise in corporate profits triggered a wave of executive bonuses and increases in stock-based compensation, especially during the 1990s tech boom. All groups enjoyed gains in real income, but the top earners gained the most.

