While the pandemic raged in 2021, it remained a great time to be filthy stinking rich in Canada. While most of us banged on pots and pans, sandblasted our groceries, quarantined our mail, and hoped for a vaccine, the richest 1 percent were enjoying a substantial surge in their wealth — a staggering increase of more than 9 percent from the previous year, according to Statistics Canada.

At the same time, working-class Canadians faced a harsh reality of diminishing financial stability. Many grappled with increasing poverty, job loss, and a reliance on government programs to make ends meet. They found themselves on the front lines of essential jobs, exposing themselves to the risk of contracting COVID, and, tragically, and even losing their lives. The rich were living in a totally different world from the rest of us, as they always have.

The latest data from Statistics Canada is neither shocking nor surprising. It simply reaffirms something we all know: poor people struggle and rich people thrive because the system is rigged to favor them. The powerful are good at negotiating — they’re especially good at tax, ahem, “management.” They endlessly engage in mutual backslapping to ensure that their class makes a fortune while low- and middle-income workers get table scraps. They excel at making sure that they receive preferential treatment from governments that are structurally predisposed to giving them whatever they want. Dog bites man, pictures at 11.