I think the point is fairly straightforward, in that a country like the United States or Canada could have a very high level of income inequality and yet the people at the middle or even the bottom of the income scale would be, in absolute terms, more well off economically than some place that had a very equal distribution—maybe some place like Cuba, which is very equal and very poor.
It doesn't mean that income inequality is not an important concept in Canada, so I'm not intending to demean the idea or the importance of it. I would note however—I don't know if it's possible to view the first slide again. I apologize to Nicole Fortin if it blots out her presence momentarily.
This point goes to the question of overall economic growth and overall income levels. There have been a number of comments about the growing inequality gap. Well, actually, those are the numbers. If you look at the red line, there is almost no increase in inequality in the last ten years. In fact, the actual percentage increase in the last ten measured years, according to Statistics Canada—I don't make this stuff up, I just use it—is 0.4%. If the rich are getting richer, which may be the case, something else has to be happening as well to result in not having an overall increase in inequality. That means that some other people on the income scale have to also be doing well.
So the fact that there is greater growth in some parts of the income scale may raise some issues, but from the overall data it looks as if Canadians in general—as I think Madame Fortin mentioned as well—are really doing a lot better than some other countries, particularly the U.S.