OECD: Canada

Income Disparity Dept: Accounts of the OECD study Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising focused on the share of total income received by the top decile of the population compared with bottom decile - the so-called Gini coefficient - the implication being that those at the top don't deserve it and that tax policies should be revised so that "the rich" pay their fair share. Never mind that the top 20 per cent already carry more than half the tax burden but earn less than half of total income, according to Vancouver Sun. It's regrettable that the OECD study may have contributed to the Robin Hood fantasy that by taking from the rich and giving to the poor we'd have a better society - like Slovenia, for instance, with inequality more than a fifth below the OECD average. Not to belabour the point but Canada has the highest net immigration rate per capita in the world, including the estimated 35,000 to 40,000 Slovenes who have made this country their home. Clearly, Canada remains an attractive destination for immigrants, about 250,000 a year with many more trying to get in , notwithstanding the OECD's verdict on Canada's growing inequality and behind the headlines blazoning the widening of income inequality measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development there's an important story - but it's not the one the media reported. This emphasis on the politics of envy should not be the basis for public policy. For a start, the gap in market incomes is reduced somewhat when cash transfers to lower income cohorts are factored in. And, although these transfers offset less of the income disparity than they used to, social spending on things like health and education reduces income inequality by as much as 20 per cent. The OECD singled out Canada as one of the world's big social spenders. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.