Even before winning its majority, Harper's Republican-styl e Conservative party - well to the right Canada's traditional Progressive Conservative Party - managed to win minority governments with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.

The free market is notorious for distributing resources in a highly unequal manner, with great concentrations of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. Our social programs, modest compared to those of many other Western countries, play an important role in redistributing some of those resources from the haves to the have-nots.

Anyone observing U.S. politics in recent years could easily conclude that lying about having sex is a serious offense worthy of impeachment, while lying about taking the country to war is hardly worth mentioning.

For society to function some kind of reasonable balance has to be stuck between the competing interests of creditors and debtors. Although the mandate of the Bank of Canada was to maintain a delicate balance between encouraging growth and fighting inflation, the Bank opted to focus exclusively on fighting inflation. In doing so it came down heavily in favour of those with financial assets to protect, and against those whose primary need was employment.

A tight-money policy reinforces inequality in two ways. Its high interest rates disproportionately reward the rich, and the resulting unemployment disproportionately punishes the poor.

High interest rates focus on the revenue of a parasitic class.Historically the financial system has been structured in favour of moneyed interests, that is, creditors.

The basic issue is whether the financial elite or the government on behalf of the people should have the profit from creating money.