TORONTO - Canada's richest one per cent are taking more of the gains from economic growth than ever before in recorded history, says a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The Rise of Canada's Richest one per cent looks at income trends over the past 90 years and reveals the 246,000 privileged few who rank among the country's richest one per cent took almost a third (32 per cent) of all growth in incomes between 1997 and 2007.

There seems to be something about the letter C and climate change.

Last year, it was Copenhagen. This week, it's Cancun. And in between it was Cochabamba. And it's not just the venues, but the outcomes. Copenhagen was all about political confrontation and the collapse of hope. This year we must wrest the conversation from the constrained voices of timid governments and change the terms of discussion. Doing so is vital to our very survival. Here is how that can be done.

Copenhagen

The Wikileaks disclosure this week of confidential cables from United States embassies has been debated chiefly in terms either of the damage to Washington's reputation or of the questions it raises about national security and freedom of the press.

The headlines aside, most of the information so far revealed from the 250,000 documents is hardly earth-shattering, even if it often runs starkly counter to the official narrative of the U.S. as the benevolent global policeman, trying to maintain order amid an often unruly rabble of underlings.