Top income shares in Canada: recent trends and policy implications

According to Canadian taxfiler data, over the last thirty years there has been a surge in the income shares of the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01% of income recipients, even with longitudinal smoothing by individual using three- or five-year moving averages. Top shares fell in 2008 and 2009, but only by a fraction of the overall surge. Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario have much more pronounced surges than other provinces. Part of the …