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isn’t a good thing

     

Garth McLennan
Editor in Chief

Phen Christy Clark was
campaigning against a slew of
senior Liberal party officials

for leadership of the embattled political:
outfit (and premiership of the province)

- that has seen more scandal than Lindsay _.
- Lohan in the last couple of years, she did-
‘so under the premise of being an outsider

| and not doing things with a “business as

" usual” mindset, After pledging to raise

' British Columbia’s minimum wage, which.
has-been frozen for the last decade, that
mindset is certainly coming to fruition.

Without a doubt, boosting the
minimum wage from $8.00 per hour to
$10.25 by May of next year (it will rise
incrementally before topping out), is a
shrewd political move for Clark. She’s
made it no secret that she plans to place
families first during her tenure as premier,
and the minimum wage hike is a good
way to distance herself from the outgoing
Gordon Campbell, who never exactly came
across as a “family first” kind of guy.

But lost amongst the hoopla are the
issues with raising the minimum wage, and
the reasons why, despite it previously being
the lowest in the country, it should have
remained the same.

Despite our collective weariness of it,
we're still coming out of a recession here
that battered businesses across the country.
In B.C., gas prices have skyrocketed in
recent months thanks to spiralling conflict
in the Middle East (or for whatever reason
the gas companies want to give us this
week...), which in turn increases the cost

 

‘Believe it or not, the minimum wage hike

, of trucking goods across the country,

which causes food prices to suppliers to
rise, which cuts into profits for related
businesses, which are then passed onto us,

- the consumer,

Then there’s the HST, which has
negatively affected business for a lot of
places. Now, the minimum wage getting
increased by close to 35 percent is yet
another whack at small business, all of this

: while business owners are trying to struggle

out of the recession.

Yes, there are benefits to boosting ~
the minimum wage (and you won’t find ©
any quarrels with the elimination of.the
infamous training wage in this space) and
yes, it hadn’t increased with the cost of
living and inflation in the last ten years, but
this is, quite simply, not the time to raise it.
Forcing businesses to enlarge the salaries
of their employees during a prolonged
period of fiscal uncertainty will only
make those businesses pass the additional
costs onto-the consumer, which is what
always happens when operating costs are
amplified.

This isn’t the type of move that will
harm the likes of Safeway, McDonalds
or Tim Horton’s. Those are massive
conglomerates which can more than absorb

the blow of an increased payroll. It’s

small business, the backbone of the B.C.
economy, which will be blasted by this.

 

 

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