Canadian Payroll Reporter

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2019 News March 2019 economy," said P.E.I.'s Workforce and Advanced Learning Minis- ter Sonny Gallant. "This increase will help mini- mum wage earners and their families, and it provides busi- nesses a three-year outlook so they can plan," said Nova Scotia Labour and Advanced Educa- tion Minister Labi Kousoulis. P.E.I.'s rate changes are based on recommendations from its Employment Standards Board, while Nova Scotia's come from its Minimum Wage Review Committee. The committee normally ad- justs the province's general mini- mum wage based on percentage changes in the consumer price index (CPI) for Canada for the previous year, rounded to the nearest $0.05. There is also a lower mini- mum wage rate, set at $0.50 less per hour, for workers with fewer than three months of experience. However, from 2019 to 2021, Nova Scotia rate increases will also include an extra amount to correct an error in the formula the province uses to set the mini- mum wage. Before moving to the CPI method in 2012, the province first implemented a series of minimum wage increases to bring the rate in line with one of Statistics Canada's Low Income Cut Off (LICO) thresholds. LICO thresholds are based on the amount that an average per- son spends on necessities (food, clothing, and shelter). They vary by family and community size. If a family must spend 20 per cent more of its income on ne- cessities than the average family, it is considered low income. When the committee recom- mended using LICO in 2008 as the basis for the minimum wage, it determined minimum wage based on a full-time employee working 40 hours a week over 50 weeks. However, the committee has since determined that Statistics Canada considers 37 hours to be an average workweek, leaving the minimum wage well below the LICO threshold the province uses. In 2018, for instance, the com- mittee said the rate should have been $11.90 an hour, not $11. To ensure that minimum wage reaches the LICO, the commit- tee recommended, and the gov- ernment agreed, that the mini- mum wage should rise to $11.55 on April 1, $12.10 on April 1, 2020, and $12.65 on April 1, 2021. The rate increases include a $0.30 adjustment for the LICO plus projected inflation of $0.25. After 2021, the rate will return to annual adjustments based on the national CPI. While advocates for a $15 minimum wage in Nova Sco- tia said they were glad to see a higher-than-normal rate hike, they added that it did not go far enough. "While this is at least $0.35 higher than any minimum wage hike for the past six years (which should be celebrated), it still falls dramatically short of a living wage and — even accord- ing to the commission's own logic — keeps full-time work- ers in poverty," said a blog post for the group Fight for $15 and Fairness-Halifax. The LICO threshold the com- mittee uses has limitations, ac- cording to the advocacy group. It applies for a population of 30,000 to 99,999 people, which, the post said, was much smaller than Halifax, where living ex- penses are higher and where more than 40 per cent of the province's population lives. It added that a living wage for a city like Halifax would be about $19 an hour. A living wage is the amount someone would need to earn to pay for necessities based on the actual cost of living in their community. The province's NDP also said it had concerns with the planned increases. "Any increase that does not get us on track to reach a $15 minimum wage does not go far enough to encourage the kind of economic growth we need," said NDP Leader Gary Burrill. "Under the Liberals' plan, Nova Scotia's minimum wage in 2021 will be lower than what workers in Ontario, Alberta, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories make today," he said. The NDP has called for the minimum wage to rise to $15 by 2020. Another jurisdiction that is considering a steep wage hike this year is Yukon. Late last year, its Employment Standards Board recommended that the government raise the minimum wage rate by $1.09 an hour to $12.60, which would be the biggest rate change there since 2012. Last year, the rate in- crease was $0.19. The board said the proposals are part of a plan to gradually raise the rate to $15.12 an hour over the next two years, with the rate rising from $11.51 to $12.60 on April 1, $13.80 on April 1, 2020, and $15.12 on April 1, 2021. After 2021, the report rec- ommended that the minimum wage return to annual adjust- ments based on increases in the CPI for Yukon. The recommended rate hikes are based on yearly increases of about $1 ($0.90 in 2019, $1 in 2020, and $1.10 in 2021), plus projected annual CPI changes of about 1.5 per cent. Besides helping low-income earners, the report said the rate increases could serve to attract workers to the territory. "The Yukon is currently eighth out of 13 jurisdictions in Canada in the amount of hourly minimum wage. It is the lowest of the three territories," said the report. "If the Yukon minimum wage continues to fall further behind the minimum wage in Alberta, B.C. and N.W.T., it may contrib- ute to the difficulty in hiring in the Yukon," said the report, not- ing that gradual increases, with the smallest occurring in the first year, would help employers bud- get for the rate hikes. While the report acknowl- edged that its recommendations would not create a living wage (estimated at $18.57 in 2018 for Yukon), it argued that there were other ways to achieve this, point- ing to tax measures and govern- ment supports. The Yukon government said it needed to review the report be- fore deciding whether to imple- ment the recommendations. One other jurisdiction that is planning a large minimum wage hike this year is British Columbia. On June 1, the government will raise the general minimum wage rate from $12.65 an hour to $13.85. The increase is part of a plan to gradually raise the rate to $15.20 as of June 1, 2021. The government also plans to eliminate a separate minimum wage rate for liquor servers by that date. While advocacy groups call- ing for a $15 minimum wage have formed in most Canadian jurisdictions in recent years, they have had limited success. Although B.C. and possibly Yu- kon are working towards it, Al- berta is the only jurisdiction that has a $15 minimum wage. Ontario was expected to reach $15 this year, but the recently elected government cancelled the rate hike and froze the gen- eral minimum wage at $14 until October 2020. Quebec has also rejected a $15 rate. In January, the govern- ment announced that the prov- ince's general minimum wage rate would rise from $12.00 an hour to $12.50 on May 1. It said the increase would help workers while not causing hardship for businesses. Although the raise will, for the first time, bring the minimum wage up to half of the average hourly wage rate in the prov- ince ($24.92 in 2018), workers' advocates, such as Campagne 5-10-15, said it fell far short of the $15 rate needed to help move minimum wage workers out of poverty. In Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan, the mini- mum wage is indexed to infla- tion, with adjustments made each year. So far, the govern- ments there have not announced plans for additional hikes. from MINIMUM on page 1 Yukon begins gradual push towards $15 base rate In four provinces, the minimum wage continues to be indexed to inflation, with annual adjustments.

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