Ontario Liberals Hint at Minimum
Wage Hike in Thursday's Budget

Mar 21, 2007 Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) - Premier Dalton McGuinty refused to confirm Wednesday that a plan is afoot to increase the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour by 2010, but there were still strong hints on the eve of the Ontario budget of a possible wage hike for the province's working poor.

Health Minister George Smitherman, also the deputy premier, said the Liberals have a proven track record of helping the lowest income earners: the minimum wage has gone up four times since they were elected in 2003, he said.

" If we don't have a pattern of increase, I don't know what you'd call that," Smitherman said.

" If there are continuing increases in the minimum wage, that should come as absolutely no surprise to people because our government has well established that pattern."

While McGuinty declined to comment on what he called budget speculation, he too defended the government's record of gradually increasing the minimum wage from $6.85 an hour in 2003 to $8 in 2007, and suggested a new schedule of increases would be announced Thursday.

" We've brought a thoughtful, balanced and responsible approach to dealing with increases in the minimum wage," McGuinty said before Wednesday's cabinet meeting.

" If you want to know where we're going in the future, take a look at the past."

The New Democrats said about 1.2 million Ontario residents make less than $10 an hour, and insisted those workers need a two-dollar increase in the minimum wage now, not in 2010.

" It's three more years of the working poor being poor," said NDP critic Cheri DiNovo. "We're asking for $10 an hour now, not in three years."

The government fears a large jump in the minimum wage could cost tens of thousands of jobs if employers move to keep their payroll levels the same after the hike by getting rid of staff.

" We don't enjoy the luxury of being wilfully blind to economic consequences of a rapid acceleration in the size of the minimum wage," McGuinty said.

" It would be irresponsible to hike it overnight."

Conservative finance critic Tim Hudak accused the Liberals of trying to cash in on the NDP's popular campaign for a $10 minimum wage, which helped the New Democrats steal a Toronto riding from the government in a byelection last month.

" This reminds me of a college poker match. It's like McGuinty is saying, 'I see the NDP's minimum wage, and I raise you a quarter,"' said Hudak.

" That's an arbitrary, amateur way of moving public policy forward."

McGuinty said the government's fourth budget - and the last before Ontario voters go to the polls Oct. 10 - will also contain specific measures to help children who are growing up poor.

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has promised his fiscal blueprint will include a "poverty agenda."

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Keith Leslie