Finance committee  I think you're absolutely correct in your interpretation of the data in terms of the redistribution. Redistribution went up hugely from 1976, and particularly during the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Around 1994 it peaked, and there was a reduction in the scale as a proportion

Finance committee  It did increase from the high point of equality and redistribution prior to 1994, as I said.

Finance committee  I think it depends on exactly what's done. For example, with taxation, as we were discussing, it's possible, and in fact recommended by the OECD—and I think Michael Veall referred to it—that even if you want to increase tax revenues to do more distribution, the better way to do t

Finance committee  Tax is a factor, and programs that provide benefits are a factor. But there are also very important elements outside the numbers that we've seen here that provide redistribution, and those would be medical care for Canadians, education, travel services, and other things like that

Finance committee  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 s

Finance committee  There are lots of issues with the Gini as a measurement tool, although it's not clear there is a better one. The other tool that I'm familiar with has been used in Statistics Canada in work by Frenette, Green, and Milligan. Instead of the labour surveys and the types of data th

Finance committee  I'm not an expert on that. Maybe Michael Veall would like to comment on that. Mobility is a very important issue, because again, even when you look at stable inequality, when you look at income distribution, we don't know it's the same people at the high end all the time. It ma

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear here this morning. In my opening remarks, I will briefly provide some context for the issue of income inequality and comment on some measurements. The first point of context is that in