Thank you for your questions.
I'm going to answer the first one, which concerns governments' redistribution obligation, but my answer will also touch on the second question.
Wealth gaps exist, as does the phenomenon of vast fortunes that manage to escape their fair share of tax. Canadian statistics prove this. It can't be said that this doesn't exist, because the numbers speak for themselves. We also see it elsewhere, in France and other countries. The problem definitely needs to be addressed.
I also distributed some other tables that I didn't discuss in my remarks. For example, table 2 shows that the top 0.01% continued to grow substantially richer from 2016 to 2021, increasing their wealth by 125% in 6 years, while their effective tax rate continued to decline significantly.
It was a 10.5% drop, and a comparison with the situation of 99% of taxpayers suggests a different trend: The tax rate of the latter group rose slightly, and there were no tax cuts.
Action has to be taken because these wealth gaps aren't just a matter of numbers. They may undermine the belief of 99% of taxpayers that our tax system is fair and that wealth is fairly redistributed.
We therefore need effective action to solve this problem.