Dear Brad Wall, please ignore Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario Liberals.
Recently the Ontario Liberal Party announced they were going to increase minimum wage in Ontario to $14 an hour in 2018 and $15 an hour in 2019.
That to me seems a little excessive.
While it seems like it might be a good idea for workers, the jury is still out on that one, it seems like a terrible idea for small business.
Here in Humboldt the city just released a plan for the Downtown Business Improvement District to try and drive more people into the downtown.
Small business has a hard enough time surviving on wages the way they are thanks to big box companies like Walmart.
Now we are going to ask them to pay their employees $15 an hour?
How are they supposed to recuperate that cost?
The only way I could see is through raising their prices.
Which will further cripple their market.
How on earth can a small business who struggles to bring people through the door actually expect to keep bringing them through the door when their prices go up?
The problem is not the people who are getting the raise to minimum wage but the people who are already making minimum wage.
Those people, who in my experience in the past do not get a raise to adjust for minimum wage are now going to find that their costs are higher and as such have less money.
So how are they going to try to save money?
They are going to find cheaper alternatives.
Those cheaper alternatives include looking towards big box stores who can offer a cheaper price than small business.
Which in turn hurts the small business.
So now the small business is seeing less business while being forced to pay their employees more.
It is not a sustainable business model.
So they then in turn have to cut costs somehow, the best way to do so is to cut employee wages.
Since they cannot cut those wages below minimum wage they have two choices, either remove their position all together or cut everyone’s hours back.
This then leaves residents with less money because there are fewer jobs and less hours to go around.
It is a vicious cycle and one I for one do not want to see.
So please Brad Wall, ignore Kathleen Wynne.
Small business needs it.
