Policy Note reports on the widening income gap in B.C. (worst in terms of inequality after Alberta) and the rest of Canada (getting worse over time) (you can also read more at Progressive-Economics.ca):

In a recent update of the Canadian data by Mike Veall of McMaster University, for the first time we have provincial data to show how dynamics have played out across in different parts of the country. In BC, for example, the top 1% received 7.8% of income in 1982, and this surged to 13.4% in 2007. After taxes and transfers, the situation is a bit better but not really that much, and the trend is the same: the top 1% received 6.6% of income in 1982, rising to 12.0% in 2007.

BC’s results roughly track the national trend, and it is notable that the top market income share is larger in both Ontario and Alberta, and smaller in every other province. After taxes and transfers, however, Ontario’s top 1% only got a measly 10% of the total income pie, making BC number two in terms of inequality after Alberta. As the Table shows, other provinces do a much better job of keeping top incomes in check. read more

Income inequality reflects a weakening of democracy, as power shifts and consolidates at one end of the political economy. Even if in absolute terms the shift in inequality did not come at the expense of greater poverty, any shift in inequality does come at the expense of democratic values and responsive government.

Worse is how the shift towards unequal incomes ends up actually contributing to greater poverty, with the more powerful using their power to reduce income supports and to privatize essential services, moving power from democratic institutions to the realm of fixed and unfair markets instead.  We cannot risk either more poverty or less democracy, which is why greater income equality and poverty reduction go hand and hand.