BC’s minimum wage is now $11.35/hr; labour group wants to get to $15/hr at a faster pace
Posted September 15, 2017 10:33 am.
Last Updated September 15, 2017 10:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The minimum wage has gone up in BC. It has jumped by 50 cents to $11.35/hr. However, BC’s biggest labour group wants Victoria to bump it up to $15/hr sooner rather than later.
The new provincial government has promised to boost minimum wage to that level by the year 2021. But BC Federation of Labour President Irene Lanzinger says they’ll be pushing the Fair Wage Commission for faster action.
“We should have a timeline consistent with Alberta and Ontario. Both of those provinces will be there in 2019. But the second thing is we know there’s very, very strong public support for a $15 minimum wage,” she argues.
Lanzinger tells us one of their arguments to the government will be that BC is an expensive province to live in. “It is the most expensive province in the country. And if Alberta and Ontario… can do this and many jurisdictions in the United States [can do this], we can too.”
As for predictions that a $15 minimum wage would hurt business in those cities, Lanzinger says, “We just do not see that impact of raising the minimum wage. It does not cause a decrease in employment.”
