Madam Chair, I would like to begin by indicating I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the MP for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
I rise today to talk about the desperate need for tax fairness in our country. Canadians are struggling. Workers and people on fixed incomes are struggling. In my constituency, children and their families are struggling. Northern Manitoba has the second highest child poverty rate in the country. First nations and indigenous communities are living in third world conditions.
However, all the while the rich are getting richer in our country, and this did not just happen. This is an accumulation of wealth, a hoarding of wealth, that is aided and abetted by the consecutive federal Liberal and Conservative governments' policies that benefit the ultrarich in their tax avoidance, and even tax evasion, schemes.
However, I want to, for a moment, point to the fact that during COVID-19 we saw something very interesting. Two things happened concurrently: there was a massive reduction in child poverty as a result of COVID-era supports; however, the gap between rich and poor grew to historic levels.
While most Canadians would choose to further reduce child poverty, the minister and the Liberal government eliminated the benefits that lifted so many out of poverty, but maintained the tax policies that keep so many in it and benefit the ultrarich. This is shocking. It is not just the moral thing to do, but it is the popular thing to do, to bring about tax fairness.
No one would ever accuse the government of doing things because they are right, but I would think the government would do it because it is popular, at least.
Over 90% of Canadians believe that the ultra-wealthy need to pay with fair share, so my questions today are focused on why the government is failing to act on this front. In fact, 11 years ago the finance minister wrote a book calling attention to the concentration of wealth into a new billionaire class.
My question to the minister is this: Does the minister know what percentage of wealth created in the last 10 years has gone to the richest 1% in Canada?