Labour group says Tim Hortons fiasco shouldn’t stop rise in BC’s minimum wage

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Short sighted and mean-spirited. That’s what the President of the BC Federation of Labour thinks of that Tim Hortons in Ontario that’s taking away employee benefits in response to a new minimum wage of $14 an hour in that province.

Irene Lanzinger still wants BC to pursue a similar hike in the minimum wage, despite some of the fallout in Ontario, saying few businesses in BC would do what those Tim Hortons franchises are doing.

“While it will take businesses some time to adjust, our experience in the past has shown that businesses do adjust, that people don’t lose their jobs,” she says “And that in fact, it’s good for the economy for low wage workers to earn more money because they spend that money in the economy and they spend it largely in small businesses.”

The province’s new Fair Wages Commission is expected to release its first report to the government early this year. Lanziger hopes they will recommend a minimum wage of $15 an hour for January 2019.

“Some might say it’s too fast, but businesses have had their way for 16 years with a government that just didn’t raise it enough.”

Lanzinger says BC is an expensive province to live in and it’s time for a minimum wage that lifts people out of poverty.

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