Page 13 - Fall 2017 english

However, proponents of the $15 an hour minimum wage criticize the study’s methodology and point to other reports and studies to indicate that the rise in minimum wage is doing as intended with little or no job loss. So, the debate continues.
UNNECESSARY INCREASE
Jeff Calderwood, CEO of the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada believes that the supply and demand of the labour market helps determine the going rate that makes such a sudden move to $15 unnecessary.
“That’s what the marketplace does. If you’re underpaying, you won’t be able to get people to work for you. It almost self-determines a minimum wage. Instead of that, now we have an artificially imposed, hypothetical number that everybody’s trying to figure out how to navigate through,” he said.
“We will put forward that position and we will support the chambers of commerce, the CFIB and other organizations that go way beyond golf,” said Calderwood.
With their shared view that the $15 an hour minimum wage is politically motivated, both Calderwood and Kelly admit that the best they can hope for is slowing down its implementation in their lobbying efforts. Ontario began committee hearings across the province in July.
It’s unlikely they’ll get much help from opposition parties, even if they should happen to get into power. In Alberta, Rachel Notley, the Premier of Alberta, dared the opposition to say they’d take away the $15 an hour minimum wage and her bravado wasn’t exactly a gamble. Few politicians want to be seen denying people a higher wage, especially in a tough economy.
“This money comes from somewhere and it comes from the payroll budgets of businesses across Canada. As our chief economist at CFIB has shared, this
is less of an issue about the employer vs. the employee as it is about employee vs. employee,” said Kelly.
Kelly agrees. “Once the wage rate goes into effect, there’s no way that a government is going to be able to roll it back, so that’s why the battle needs to be right now, at the very minimum to get governments to slow down the speed by which they’re planning to get to $15,” he said.
Both concede that it could be a drawn-out effort as well as smaller provinces are tempted to follow the lead of larger provinces such as Ontario and Alberta. The first to make that move will likely be British Columbia with a NDP government about to take over.
“The pressure on the smaller provinces to do the same is going to be immense,” said Kelly. Calderwood agrees.
“When you have the bigger provinces going there, it’s precedent setting and others will follow,” said Calderwood, adding that many people who a $15 an hour minimum wage is supposed to help will find out in time about the true effects.
WIN FOR THE POLITICIANS
If the increase is not a win for businesses or for the individuals it claims to help, then the politicians may be the only ones coming out on top.
“The other point that we’ve raised continually is that one of the biggest winners from a minimum wage hike is government because low income people have a very high marginal tax rate when they get an extra dollar of income. Especially if it pushes them into higher tax brackets, they end up losing a large chunk of each additional dollar of income, so governments end up getting a bit of a windfall coming out of this,” said Kelly.
There’s another win for the governments in power. Notley and the NDP used the $15 an hour minimum wage as a platform in gaining a landslide victory in Alberta in 2015, but introduced it the following year with the province mired in an economic slump due to falling world oil prices.
The $15 an hour minimum wage will still be fresh in voters’ minds by the time the next election rolls around in 2019, if not sooner as some have suggested that Notley may call an early election.
In Ontario, the Liberals, who also have a majority government, have plummeted in the polls as has Wynne herself with an election only a year away, despite announcing a boatload of goodies including the $15 an hour minimum wage, among other sweeping labour reforms.
The minimum wage would peak at $15 just after the provincial election, allowing Wynne to crow about it and other goodies on the campaign trail.
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