It's even worse than that considering that most Americans aren't even aware how unequal things really are. One study showed that Americans believed the richest 20% of their countrymen possessed about 59% of the wealth. The number is actually 84%, leaving just 16% of the nation's wealth for the other 80% of the population.
Canada is a bit better off in this regard although by no means totally safe since inequality is growing annually. Since 1976, only the top 20% of Canadians increased their share of the income pie. Between 1998 and 2007, the richest 1% of Canadians took home a third of income growth. Although basically all the developed countries have experienced a rise in inequality in the last 20 years, Canada has managed to be the sixth most unequal country out of the 17. This means that in 2010 and adjusted for redistributive programs, the top fifth of Canadians captured 39.1% of the gains, the second fifth captured 23.2%, and the bottom fifth captured 7.3%.
All around, I think these numbers are not too shabby. If they stayed like this, it wouldn't be terrible. Equal enough to maintain consumer spending and decent lifestyles for everyone while allowing incentives to try and make it to the top.
America certainly has it worse, which is probably why Occupy Wall Street didn't start as Occupy Bay Street. Occupy Wall Street showed that many people are pretty annoyed with the 1%. However, I think it's safe to say that this annoyance is aimed at a pretty small group of people, a group many would refer to as the parasitic rich. I have yet to hear anyone suggesting Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Brad Pitt or Beyoncé or doctors or entrepreneurs who create useful stuff or other rich people along those lines should be strung up from lampposts.
Fraudulent bankers - yes. People who use their wealth to try and buy elections for politicians who will distort the laws in their favor - yes. Useful and decent rich people? Nah, not seeing it.
Certainly, people like the Koch brothers get a lot of flak. They inherited their massive wealth and spend a lot of it trying to influence government and voters in ways that are rarely totally honest and are generally at odds with democracy. You may remember that they essentially hijacked the Tea Party movement soon after its creation while trying to keep it a secret that they were funding it. Many in the Tea Party thought that they were just an independent group, angry with a too-big government and its alliance with special interests. However, the Kochs simply considered them useful idiots because they liked their minimal government stance which would mean reduced taxes and regulations.
Either way, back to inequality. Is inequality an issue that needs to be resolved? Personally, I'd say it needs to be tempered because trying to stamp it out completely is a really bad idea. Communism and a lack of incentives results in something that has historically been shown to be pretty terrible. They say a rising tide lifts all boats and they are right. Capitalism and its incentive structure and decentralized planning is needed for resources to be allocated efficiently and for affluence for the masses.
That said, inequality passed a certain threshold causes some serious problems. It becomes more like a rising tide when most of the boats are anchored to the bottom.
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