In Canada, billionaires have seen their wealth grow by a 51 per cent since the pandemic began, says an Oxfam report. ‘Survival of the Richest’ says this accelerated a trend that was already driving wealth inequality in Canada over the past decade. For every $100 of wealth created in the last 10 years, $34 has gone to the richest one per cent and only $5 to the bottom 50 per cent. This means that the richest one per cent have gained nearly seven times more wealth than the bottom 50 per cent in the last 10 years. "Canadians are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food and utility bills, while the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires," says Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada. "Taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today's overlapping crises. It's time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow 'trickling down' to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide doesn't lift all ships ‒ just the superyachts." During the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis years since 2020, $26 trillion of all new wealth was captured by the richest one per cent globally, while $16 trillion went to the rest of the world put together. A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90 per cent. Billionaire fortunes have increased by $2.7 billion a day. This comes on top of a decade of historic gains as the number and wealth of billionaires doubled over the last 10 years.
- PWC