Article content

With the approval of two major pipeline projects, proponents of policies aimed at reducing income inequality should rejoice: They just (unwittingly) won the jackpot. They should regard these wealth-creating projects as one of the best and easiest ways to create good, sustainable jobs, foster wage growth, and reduce income inequality.

The energy sector has contributed to reducing the gap between the rich and the poor in resource-rich provinces. According to a 2015 study by Nicole Fortin and Thomas Lemieux of the Vancouver School of Economics at UBC, inequality declined in Alberta and Saskatchewan over the 1999-2013 period.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Pipelines against inequality! How oil and gas reduced the gap between Canada's rich and poor Back to video

Furthermore, “wages in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and Alberta grew much faster than in other provinces,” especially for low-skilled workers, who saw substantially faster growth in wages than their university-educated counterparts. In Ontario, the average wage grew by 23 percentage points less than in these three provinces since the late 1990s, where employment in the extractive resource sector soared by 50 per cent.