Close X
Thursday, October 3, 2024
ADVT 
National

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley Defends Plan To Hike Minimum Wage By 2018

Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Dec, 2015 12:52 PM
  • Alberta Premier Rachel Notley Defends Plan To Hike Minimum Wage By 2018
EDMONTON — The Alberta government is not wavering from its plan to raise the minimum wage despite an internal document that warns of the possibility of job losses.
 
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is calling on the NDP to slow the plan after obtaining the Jobs ministry document through an access to information request
 
CFIB spokesman Richard Truscott says the memo tells a different story than the government has been saying.
 
He says the province has been maintaining that hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018 would create jobs, not kill them.
 
But Premier Rachel Notley says the group is cherry-picking parts of the memo.
 
She says the federation is ignoring other important elements.
 
 
“The document you’re referring to, if you read it fully, essentially says we don’t know exactly what the outcome would be if this goes ahead as previously planned in 2018, and there’s a possibility we could have job losses.” she says. “But it doesn’t say definitively nor is it relying on a planned state of action that we’ve actually committed to yet.”
 
In fact, she says, the rest of the memo echoes previous statements from the NDP on the issue of minimum wage, and even says the recent hike to $11.20 an hour has rendered positive results already.
 
“The memo to which you’re referring to actually says that the steps that we’ve taken thus far at the very least has no negative impact,” she says, “and suggests that there is in fact research out there – as I have been saying all along – that suggests it might actually have a positive impact.”
 
Notley adds that if there are job losses, there is a plan to adjust the minimum wage roll-out.
 
“We’re going to to track what the implications have been as we moved forward,” she says. “We’re going to keep an eye on what’s happening in the economy overall, and to the level of job creation and job sustainability in Alberta and we’ll adjust accordingly.”

MORE National ARTICLES

Police Issue Photos Of Man Wanted In Attempted Abduction Of 8-Year-Old Girl Near Stanley Park

Police Issue Photos Of Man Wanted In Attempted Abduction Of 8-Year-Old Girl Near Stanley Park
Police say the man is white, 20 to 30 years old, about five feet eight inches tall, has a thin build, dark hair and a bushy goatee

Police Issue Photos Of Man Wanted In Attempted Abduction Of 8-Year-Old Girl Near Stanley Park

Memorial Scheduled In Vancouver Today For Two Drowned Syrian Boys

Memorial Scheduled In Vancouver Today For Two Drowned Syrian Boys
A picture of the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach received prominent worldwide attention and has sparked debate about the plight of refugees from the region. 

Memorial Scheduled In Vancouver Today For Two Drowned Syrian Boys

Canadian Couple Document Centuries-Old Oral Language In Effort To Sustain It

Canadian Couple Document Centuries-Old Oral Language In Effort To Sustain It
Erik Anonby and Christina van der Wal have dedicated nearly a decade to comprehensively documenting the language of Kumzari in a way no one appears to have done before.

Canadian Couple Document Centuries-Old Oral Language In Effort To Sustain It

Two Drown In St. Lawrence Near Cornwall In Suspected Human Smuggling Attempt

Two Drown In St. Lawrence Near Cornwall In Suspected Human Smuggling Attempt
CORNWALL, Ont. — Two men have drowned in the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall, Ont, in what authorities suspect was a failed human smuggling attempt.

Two Drown In St. Lawrence Near Cornwall In Suspected Human Smuggling Attempt

Unions Need To Present Better Case To The Public In Rights Battle: Labour Leader Hassan Yussuff

Unions Need To Present Better Case To The Public In Rights Battle: Labour Leader Hassan Yussuff
Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff said more has to be done to talk about the value of unions and their role in society.

Unions Need To Present Better Case To The Public In Rights Battle: Labour Leader Hassan Yussuff

Canada's Complex Rules For Refugee Settlement, Here's How The Process Works

Canada's Complex Rules For Refugee Settlement,  Here's How The Process Works
Here's a look at how the process works:

Canada's Complex Rules For Refugee Settlement, Here's How The Process Works