This is not an American problem with American solutions. Canada has its own billionaire class — many of them controlling industries essential to everyday life: groceries, media, oil, telecommunications. And Canada has its own set of policy failures that enabled them.
Share of Canada's total wealth owned by the top 1% of Canadians.
Source: Statistics Canada [C1]
Canadian billionaires whose combined wealth equals that of the bottom 30% of all Canadians.
Source: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [C2]
Inheritance tax in Canada. Billionaire dynasties pass wealth to heirs largely untaxed.
Source: CRA / Department of Finance Canada
Federal corporate tax rate today, down from 28% in the 1990s — a gift to shareholders, not workers.
Source: Department of Finance Canada [C3]
Canada's wealthiest family, led by David Thomson, controls Thomson Reuters — one of the world's largest media and information companies. The family also owns The Globe and Mail through Woodbridge Company, giving them direct influence over Canada's national newspaper of record. Their wealth has more than doubled since the 2010s, primarily through financial information services and legal databases — infrastructure businesses with near-monopoly positions in their markets. [C4]
The Weston family controls Loblaw Companies — Canada's largest grocery retailer, which includes No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Shoppers Drug Mart, Joe Fresh, and PC Financial. In other words: where Canadians buy their food, their medicine, their clothes, and their banking. During the pandemic and subsequent inflation surge, Loblaw posted record profits while Canadians struggled to afford groceries.
In 2023, Galen Weston Jr. was summoned before the House of Commons Agriculture Committee to answer for grocery price gouging. He defended his record. Meanwhile, a separate investigation confirmed that Loblaw and other major grocers had fixed the price of bread for 14 years (2001–2015). The "restitution" offered to Canadians: a $25 gift card. [C5]
The Irving family controls an estimated 40% of New Brunswick's entire economic activity — oil refining (Irving Oil), forestry, shipbuilding, trucking, and retail. They also own virtually all major English-language newspapers in the province, including the Telegraph-Journal, Times & Transcript, and Brunswick News papers. [C6]
A single family controlling the jobs, the energy, the land, and the press of an entire province is the definition of the warning Louis Brandeis issued: you cannot have democracy and this level of concentrated wealth simultaneously.
The Desmarais family controls Power Corporation of Canada, which holds major stakes in Great-West Lifeco, IGM Financial (Investors Group, Mackenzie), and numerous European financial firms through Pargesa Holdings. The family has long-standing and well-documented connections to senior politicians in both Liberal and Conservative parties — a revolving door between corporate boardrooms and the Prime Minister's Office that has operated for decades. [C7]
BC-based billionaire who built the Jim Pattison Group into one of Canada's largest privately held companies, spanning grocery retail (Save-On-Foods, Overwaitea), car dealerships, media, packaging, and Ripley's Believe It or Not. Pattison has long been celebrated as a self-made Canadian success story — a narrative that obscures the degree to which dominant market positions, not individual genius, drive wealth at this scale. [C8]
Lululemon founder whose wealth was built on the labour of garment workers and retail employees. Wilson has been publicly opposed to union organizing and has made controversial comments that revealed a stark view of class and personal responsibility. He has since pivoted to real estate, acquiring significant property holdings in Vancouver — contributing to the housing affordability crisis in one of Canada's most unaffordable cities. [C9]
In Canada, five corporations — Loblaw, Sobeys (Empire), Metro, Walmart Canada, and Costco — control roughly 80% of grocery sales. When inflation hit in 2021–2023, all five raised prices simultaneously. All five posted record profits. Canadian families cut back on food. [C5]
This is not market failure. This is the market working exactly as designed when a handful of players face no meaningful competition and face regulators without the tools or will to hold them accountable. A Grocery Code of Conduct — long demanded by independent grocers and consumer advocates — was repeatedly delayed while lobbyists for the major chains worked against it.
"Canada is a country where the same family can own your grocery store, your pharmacy, your bank, your fashion brand, and the newspaper that covers the story of their rising profits."— On the Weston family's portfolio of essential Canadian services