Liberals aren’t up to the job of spreading wealth

They’re too tied to Canada’s wealthy elite to make change

In recent years, we’ve heard plenty about the increasing concentration of wealth.

A new study by Credit Suisse released this week highlighted how fewer and fewer people now control an increasing share of global wealth, with one per cent of the world’s population holding 50 per cent of its wealth. And it’s no coincidence that choices oriented toward further favouring the luckiest few are leaving the millennial generation with less opportunity than its predecessor.

Likewise in Canadian political circles, governance patterns have been shifting toward the increased concentration of power in leaders’ offices.

The rise of centrally controlled government dates back at least to our current prime minister’s father. But it’s become increasingly dominant over the past couple of decades: The Chretien/Martin Liberals discarded their electoral platform and promises in favour of top-down decision-making and a culture of entitlement, and Stephen Harper spent his time in power imposing strict top-down control in every corner of partisan and parliamentary politics.

But we haven’t yet seen those two factors combine with a similar concentration of privilege in quite the same way they’ve intersected within Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.

In recent weeks, the Liberals have faced realities which should have provoked some serious soul-searching.

When he took office, Finance Minister Bill Morneau offered assurances that he would put his assets in a blind trust.

But we recently learned he had done nothing of the sort, relying instead on advice from the ethics commissioner that he didn’t have to bother.

And in the meantime, Morneau had personally introduced legislation to direct more pension management into the hands of firms like his own — all while standing to profit from that choice.

Those revelations should have led to a serious review of Morneau’s actions. But Morneau, with Trudeau’s support, decided he could simply cut a cheque for the amount of his recent gains and use that as a get-out-of-ethics-free card. And at least one fawning media profile suggests he may well be able to buy his way out of trouble.

Similarly, the recently released Paradise Papers included evidence that the Liberals’ fundraising chair, Seagram heir Stephen Bronfman, was connected through his investment company to a Cayman Islands trust which may have cost Canada millions in tax revenues. And what’s more, the trust involved was at the centre of lobbying efforts that succeeded in leaving open loopholes to facilitate further tax avoidance — at least, by those wealthy enough to afford it.

That should have been an especially serious problem for a government which had committed to reining in tax evasion — as the Liberals did in their pitch to win votes.

But once again, the promise of a progressive government didn’t stand a chance against the Liberals’ instinct to favour their inner circle. Bronfman promptly issued a statement which made no mention of his investment company, and Trudeau responded by declaring he was satisfied with the outcome.

Finally, the Liberals’ broken promise of electoral reform is based primarily on their desire to keep power contained in a single party’s hands, whether or not it has the support of a majority of Canadians.

Needless to say, the Liberals’ proclivity for concentrated wealth and power shouldn’t be shared by the people who worked to oust the Harper Conservatives precisely because they recognize that unfairness needs to be identified and remedied, not merely shrugged off.

But that effort will require a government committed to sharing and dispersing all kinds of power and influence.

And a Liberal regime instead focused on hoarding them for a privileged few looks to be ill-suited to the task.