Jeff Vinnick via Getty Images Protesters wear pig masks and business suits as thousands of people participate in the Occupy Vancouver protest on Oct. 15, 2011 in Vancouver, B.C.

Although the rationale is the supposed need to maintain Canada's competitiveness in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's gargantuan tax cuts, it is actually a question of priorities — or, more accurately, constituencies. The federal government has made it clear to whom it feels accountable. In a time of record profits, Canadian corporations already receive billions in subsidies every year, not to mention massive corporate tax cuts and loopholes and the roughly $3 billion in taxes that wealthy Canadians and corporations evade through offshore havens on an annual basis. Despite perennial promises by government to crack down, that money continues to accumulate, sloshing around the global economy in an era of unprecedented wealth and inequality. Victory for the one per cent This triumph of the one per cent follows decades of cuts to the social welfare programs that strengthen the fabric of our society. According to a report by the OECD, Canada ranks 24th out of 34 countries in social expenditures as a percentage of GDP.

Dave Norris via Getty Images Federal NDP leader David Lewis denounced Canada's corporate tax system in 1972.

Austerity-minded governments have insisted that we cannot afford the rising costs of social programs without incurring enormous deficits or a higher tax burden on ordinary Canadians. But this argument does not, apparently, apply to tax breaks for corporations. And the double standard is not new. In the 1972 federal election campaign, the New Democratic Party denounced "corporate welfare bums." Federal leader David Lewis (grandfather of co-author Avi Lewis) railed against multinational corporations that received significant subsidies from the government while at the same time escaping their fair share of taxes. He said in his book Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums: "I oppose in principle the tax concessions and loopholes for which large, often foreign-owned corporations benefit at the expense of the ordinary Canadian taxpayer. The latter is forced to carry a heavier tax burden because the corporations do not pay their share." Lewis added that "while social welfare legislation has been subjected to the most critical scrutiny as to its costs, benefits and consequences," and been consistently targeted for cuts, "the attention of Canadians has been deflected from any examination of... the corporate welfare state." He went on: "Welfare is for the needy, not big and wealthy multinational corporations." This campaign proved enormously successful. The NDP elected 31 MPs, their biggest caucus to that point. They also held the balance of power in a minority Liberal government. Canadians proved receptive to calls to re-balance the tax burden and direct government spending to benefit people over corporations. Firms don't gripe when they get bailouts And yet, 45 years later, corporations continue to receive billions of dollars in grants and tax breaks, and social spending suffers. Corporations extol the value of the free market and denounce increased government spending. Except, of course, when government largesse flows their way. What do Canadians get for these billions of dollars in corporate welfare payments? We're told that corporations require grants and tax breaks to remain competitive, to create jobs and to stimulate the economy. And yet a singular feature of corporate welfare is that it's almost always free of any conditions to ensure those benefits actually occur. The most striking example in Canadian history happened just recently. General Motors, a company that makes about $20 billion each year, is closing its Oshawa plant, bringing to an end a century of automotive production in that city.