How Toronto's one per cent outranks the rich in these other North American cities

The wealthiest one per cent of Torontonians have few peers when it comes to how much richer they are than ordinary citizens in their city.

According to a new study out of the University of Toronto, the city’s wealthiest one per cent are about 100,000 times richer than the average person.

That chasm is the fourth widest out any North American city, trailing only Mexico City, Seattle and Dallas.

“Toronto is a very, very rich and a very, very unequal place,” one of the study’s authors, Richard Florida, told the Metro.

Florida said that these elites are mostly older men between the ages of 57 and 82 who work in a variety of fields including media, fashion, retail, finance, real estate and health care.

He added that some elites on the list, like Donald Trump, inherited their riches, while others are self-made.

Kwame McKenzie, the CEO of the non-profit Wellesley Institute that analyzes societal inequities, told the Metro that it is no secret that the gap between the super rich and average citizens is growing.

And, he said, this growing wealth discrepancy is a “social cancer” that has manifested itself in issues with getting funding for public services, and it is also a drag on people’s health and life expectancy.

“It really does cut through our social fabric in a way that isn’t good for anyone,” he said.

“The question is, what will the government do about it?”

Despite the gulf in wealth between the city’s richest citizens and its elite, Toronto is actually only home to eight of Canada’s 33 billionaires.

The study looked at data from Forbes’ 2015 billionaires’ listings to map where they live.