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Minimum wage to increase to $11.40/hr Saturday

Some advocates calling for a $15/hr minimum wage in Ontario 
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Ontario's minimum wage will increase from $11.25 an hour to $11.40 an hour Saturday. File photo.

Ontario's minimum wage will increase from $11.25 an hour to $11.40 an hour Saturday.

The minimum wage for liquor servers – who receive some additional income from tips – will also increase from $9.80 an hour to $9.90.

But some groups, like the Sudbury Workers Education and Advocacy Centre have argued the increase is not sufficient to pull minimum wage workers past the poverty line.

The organization, along with the NDP, has lobbied for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Jenny Fortin, the Sudbury Workers Education and Advocacy Centre's executive director, said a higher minimum wage would boost the local economy. 
“When you give people more money they have more money to spend,” she said.

But even a $15 an hour minimum wage would not allow a family of four in Sudbury to meet all their basic needs, Fortin said.

In 2015 the organization calculated two parents in a family of four would need to earn $16.18 an hour, working full time, to keep up with the minimum cost of living in Sudbury.

But the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce has argued raising the minimum wage too rapidly could harm the local economy.

“If there's a floor on minimum wage there also has to be a ceiling in terms of the effect on the economy overall,” said Tracy Nutt, chair of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

Nutt said minimum wage increases should keep up with increases to the consumer price index – as they have over the last three years – but anything more would put too much of a burden on employers.

With wage increases also come increases to the Canada Pension Plan, employment insurance benefits and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board benefits.

Nutt said larger increases to the minimum wage also result in higher prices for goods and services, which can cancel out the income gains employees make. 

Ontario Labour Minister Kevin Flynn has said Ontario's minimum wage is one of the highest in the country and the government will re-examine it in about two years.

Alberta's NDP government recently announced it plans to increase the province's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.


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Jonathan Migneault

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