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The gap between the haves and have-nots is growing. Instead of using its taxing and spending powers to reverse this trend, the federal government is planning to indiscriminately cut government programs, showing little regard for public servants and average Canadians. Inequality will worsen as a result, making Canada look more like the neighbour we have a beef with, not less.

In the past year, the average net worth of the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadian households increased by $101,000, compared to a $2,600 rise in the average net worth of the bottom 40 per cent of households. Within just a year, the wealth gap between affluent and modest households grew by nearly $100,000.

The same thing is happening to income.

The average disposable income of households in the top 20 per cent grew by $3,700, or 7.7 per cent, over the past year. This growth was due to higher wages and increased investment income.

In contrast, the average disposable income of the bottom 20 per cent grew by $200, or 3.2 per cent, over the past year. For this group, average wages and investment income declined; only income transfers from governments increased.

Salaries and investment income are growing for the wealthy and shrinking for the poor. Income transfers are not reversing the trend, but they are alleviating it.

Or at least they were.

David Macdonald of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives took a close look at the and estimated the cuts to federal government transfers.

By requiring federal departments to cut 15 per cent of their budget — except Defence, Board Services, and the RCMP — the new federal government plans to reduce its budget by $25 billion over the next three years. Several programs and services will be impacted.

Programs delivered to Indigenous Peoples could be cut by $4.5 billion a year. The Department of Veterans Affairs could lose $870 million, including funds that cover health benefits. Services for newcomers and refugees could be slashed by $505 million. These are just some of the most notable items.

The federal government is also requiring Crown corporations that provide essential services, such as Via Rail and CBC, to do less for the Canadian population, 15 per cent less.

The prime minister has gone from Captain Canada to Captain Cuts. And the damage will be deeply felt.

Billionaires and free-market economists love claiming that wealth trickles down, but literally centuries’ worth of empirical evidence show that this is not the case. Wealth actually piles up. Governments can mitigate this structural problem in our economic system through taxing and spending that redistributes wealth to lower-income families.

The current federal government is shying away from this crucial responsibility.

While growing inequality is a longer-term trend, which cannot be blamed on this government, the plan to cut $25 billion in transfers signals a complete disinterest in reversing it. The most recent and comparable example of this sort of indifference is Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts in the United States, which thoughtlessly demolished programs Americans badly need.

ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½nians will also recall Mayor Rob Ford’s “â€� crusade — the city has yet to fully recover from those cuts.

Although Canada has experienced a recent rise in nationalism, data on growing inequality and Ottawa’s lack of interest in addressing it suggest that we are becoming more, not less, like the United States.