Thank you for this. Those studies are extremely important, I think, for the public domain, because we have, in my opinion, an absolutely failed fiscal policy under the previous government. Under the current government it is even worse. We're seeing increasingly this chasm between very wealthy Canadians, with billionaires increasing their wealth by $78 billion during the course of this pandemic, and most Canadian families, who are within $200 of insolvency in any given month. I mean, there is this chasm now of the very wealthy and an increasing number of very poor people in this country, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
You mentioned in your comments “exhausting” the fiscal room. You indicated in the past at committee, and you indicated again today, that there really are only two doors. One door is to slash and cut existing programs and simply remove those supports from Canadians who already are struggling to make ends meet. The other is to create new categories of taxation that allow the wealthy, the ultra- rich in this country, to pay closer to their fair share of taxes.
Could you comment on what the impact would be, if we talk about the policies you mentioned—the wealth tax, the excess profits tax, shutting down overseas tax havens—and what that could mean in terms of expanding the fiscal room and allowing for investments that will actually make a difference in people's lives?