I thank Ms. Dzerowicz for asking the question. We, over here, actually answer questions, so we were happy to provide you with that answer.
Of course, this minister has been trying to convince Canadians that prices would drop. Up until last week, that was her official position. Last week she finally acknowledged that we have inflation in Canada, but today she said not to worry about that because the stock market has gone up. Of course, the stock market goes up whenever governments flood the economy with cash. They create asset bubbles whereby the very rich get much richer, but then the very poor end up having to pay more as those dollars trickle down. It's one of the reasons why trickle-down economics never works, because it never trickles down. It stays with the rich at the very top. Then the people who do all the work on the ground end up paying the bills.
It's interesting. The Prime Minister was once asked what is middle class and what is rich. He said that middle class folks live off their incomes, whereas rich folks live off their assets. The minister comes here today and says that things are great because those who live off their assets have watched those assets inflate in value by 20%. She even marvelled at how the stock market had gone up so much, even though the economy is smaller today than it was before COVID.
We have a smaller economy but a much larger stock market, so if the folks who own all the stocks are significantly wealthier when the overall output of the economy is slightly down, that means there is less for everyone else. What we see here again is a government that is taking from the have-nots to give to the have-gots. Sure, if you're floating around on your yacht right now, if you're planning to get back to—