Features Business Policy
Ontario rejects group’s call to scrap increase in minimum wage

February 24, 2009, Toronto, Ont. – A scheduled 75-cent hourly increase
in Ontario’s minimum wage will go ahead as planned in March.

February 24, 2009, Toronto, Ont. – A scheduled 75-cent hourly increase in Ontario’s minimum wage will go ahead as planned in March.

That won’t please the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which has called on the government to scrap the plan to boost the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour on March 31.

The small-business lobby cited the faltering economy, and says the last thing its members need is another increase in the cost of doing business.

Labour Minister Peter Fonseca says the government consulted businesses before implementing a schedule to increase the minimum wage each year.

Fonseca says the Liberal government felt that was the fair way to proceed after the Conservatives froze the minimum wage for nine years.

He calls the scheduled increases “one of the cornerstones” of the government’s poverty reduction strategy.

“It will help those vulnerable workers in Ontario make a little bit more money and help them out with their quality of life,” Fonseca said.

“The (government) has worked closely with the small-business community to address some of their concerns, but we feel in terms of the minimum wage, it’s the right thing to do to improve the livelihood of those most vulnerable workers.”