Despite the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic it appears the most wealthiest Canadians are raking in the cash.

The top 20 richest people in the country collectively added over $37 billion to their wealth since March when the pandemic hit.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analyst, Alex Hemingway, says while the rich are getting richer but as far as us regular folks, well you know the rest of that old saying.

“There were 1.1 million jobs in Canada from the latest labour force data and low wage workers being hit in particular including workers who work for the owners who show up on this billionaires list,” he said.

Hemingway used a couple of grocery chain owners as an example, Loblaws’ Galen Weston who locally owns Superstore and Save On Foods owner, B.C. media mogul Jim Pattison.

“There’s a disconnect between the run up of the stock market and what’s actually happening for working people in this country,” he added. “Those front line grocery workers for example. They saw, very briefly, under major public pressure at the beginning of the pandemic, they saw that two dollar per hour pandemic pay increase.”

“Well, two of the billionaires on this list, Galen Weston and Jim Pattison clawed back that pandemic pay beginning in June.”

He says those gains have been on the backs of employees and despite the negative publicity over the move, it had a positive result on the bottom line.

“Loblaws, Weston’s company, saw it’s stock rise after it clawed back that pandemic pay,”Hemingway added. “So, in any case there’s a disconnect between what’s happening in the stock market and what’s happening for working people who really contribute an enormous amount to creating the wealth that is accumulating to these richest billionaires.”

Currently, one percent of Canadians control 26 percent of the country’s total wealth. One way to curtail the imbalance would be reforming tax havens according to Hemingway, but he says political will is needed for that to happen.