What are the most personal causes that stir the hearts of our nation’s political leaders? The Star asked the leaders of Canada’s major political parties to share the issues that move them deeply. Today, in the fourth of a series, we look at the middle class, the cause chosen by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.Sonia Massoud and her husband make a good living. As an accountant and an electronics engineer, she estimates they take in more than $100,000 a year between them.“But it doesn’t go anywhere,” says the 42-year-old.“We don’t feel like we have that money.”The couple have two boys under the age of 10, and rent the top floor of a home in North York. After rent, transportation (she spends more than $300 a month in tolls to drive on Highway 407 to avoid traffic when visiting her accounting clients) and other expenses, there’s just not much left over.“I think to myself, as an accountant, if I’m struggling, what about the people who don’t speak English? Who are working $16-an-hour jobs?” she says. “It’s just too much.”The “middle class” is a term that often gets thrown around during election campaigns. It’s a label that millions of Canadians — from factory workers to doctors — use to describe themselves, without an exact definition.But experts agree it’s a group that’s feeling increasingly squeezed, given the high cost of housing, mounting debt and stagnant wages.Geranda Notten, associate professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, says, depending on how you define it, there has been a “shrinking” of the middle class over recent decades. In Canada, as in many developed countries, the incomes of those at the very top of the scale have jumped, while those at the bottom have stalled. This is because of a number of global factors, including increased automation of lower and even some middle-income jobs, she says. But ...
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