The Gap Between Rich and Poor In Canada

National economies are extremely complex. The level of economic development is the major indicator of the place that the country stands on the international economic scene or economic staircase. Many factors are responsible for economic growth and sustainability as well as for crisis and disruption. Nowadays, all the countries of the globe are interconnected and closely intermingled with each other in the net of international economic relations due to globalization. Therefore, Canadian citizens should prevent the gap between rich and the poor to make Canada a greater society.

Canada is a country famous for the growth of the national wealth, its transformation into financial and economic, and political leader of the capitalist world. Canada uses any opportunity to take control over new markets, to increase the production and export products and investments. Canada has become a country many people want to invest in; “people follow stability and strength, and so there's people investing in Canada like they used to invest in England, the United States and German. The world feels our affluence” (Serving Up the City to the Super-Rich 2007). Investment is an integral part of the country’s policy and making investments in an economically strong and stable country like Canada often guarantees the development and preservation of the company’s well-being. Therefore, there is tremendous amount of cash influx from foreign economies into Canada, making more investments in Canadian economy, -like this case of construction of 14 hyper-luxury condos- accompanied by buying lots of Canadian dollars, thus rising demand for it and making the value of Canadian currency grow. “There is a stealth influx of foreign capital changing the face of downtown Toronto from the waterfront to Yorkville” (Serving Up the City to the Super-Rich 2007).

In Canada today, the middle class is shrinking, while the percent of the rich and the poor continues to grow. The average work hours of Canadian working individuals in April 2009 were 36.2 hours per week, but very large percentage of 9.2% of Canadians still falls in the category of low income. Yet, the number of millionaires and billionaires is growing. In 2002, the number of persons with income of $250,000 and over were 94,020 but in 2006, the number has increased to 144,830 (Statistics Canada). As one of the results of increased number of these rich people, we can now even witness a gigantic project like this: “Welcome to Toronto's new era of wealth.