Watch the video above: Where do you set minimum wage? Alan Carter reports.
TORONTO – Those who earn minimum wage in Ontario can look forward to a raise in pay – the first in four years.
A special advisory panel on Monday called for changes to be linked to the inflation rate and to give businesses four months warning of any increases.
It also recommends the minimum wage be changed April 1st each year, with advance notice December 1st of exactly how much it will go up.
Read More: Ontario’s new minimum wage: A 75-cent raise?
Premier Kathleen Wynne said Monday in Ottawa that the government has a good idea of where it wants to set the minimum wage and will have a number “very soon.”
Ontario is currently tied for second with British Columbia for the highest minimum wage at $10.25 an hour – Yukon is the highest with $11.
A study last fall showed the number of minimum wage workers in Ontario more than doubled since the Liberals came to power in 2003 to nine per cent of the workforce in 2011.
The Ontario Convenience Stores Association says it likes seeing future increases in the minimum wage tied to the inflation rate.
But Deena Ladd of the Workers Action Centre notes a full-time minimum wage earner falls 25 per cent below the poverty line, and needs more than a cost-of-living increase.
READ MORE: Where do you set the minimum wage?
On the other hand, the business community worries how the higher wage could impact them directly.
“It’s going to make it more difficult for business owners to cope, in general because the higher the minimum wage, the less jobs that small businesses can create,” said Nicole Troster, Senior Policy Analyst with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in Ontario.
-With files from Alan Carter and The Canadian Press
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