Whitehorse Daily Star

Image title

Photo by Vince Fedoroff

MINIMUM WAGE HIKE PROPOSED – NDP candidates from left, Kate White, Shirley Chua-Tan, André Bourcier, Rod Snow, Jan Stick and Francis Van Kessel stand behind party leader Liz Hanson this morning at Well-Read Books as she announces an NDP government elected Nov. 7 would raise the territory’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by the end of a five-year mandate. Inset Rick Karp

‘People cannot be expected to live on $11.07 an hour’

Minimum wage earners could see a significant raise under a Yukon NDP government.

By Sidney Cohen on October 17, 2016

Minimum wage earners could see a significant raise under a Yukon NDP government.

NDP Leader Liz Hanson announced today that if elected, her party would raise the minimum wage 35 per cent, to $15, by the end of its maximum five-year mandate.

This means Yukoners would earn a minimum of $15 per hour by November 2021. The minimum wage in the Yukon currently is $11.07.

“People cannot reasonably be expected to live on $11.07 an hour,” Hanson said at a press conference held this morning at Well-Read Books in downtown Whitehorse.

“I don’t think there should be any ... sense that some people should be poor and work full-time.”

The minimum wage in the territory rises on April 1 every year. The increase is pegged to the previous year’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The CPI is an index of prices of a sample of goods and services and is often used as a measure of inflation.

On April 1, 2016, the minimum wage rose 22 cents, from $10.85 to $11.07.

In order to hit $15 by 2021, the minimum wage would need to increase by about 79 cents a year starting next April.

By this calculation, the minimum wage would rise to $11.86 in April 2017.

The sooner the Yukon’s minimum wage can hit $15, the better, said Hanson, “but we need to have consultations with business and with other stakeholders as well.”

While the Yukon has the lowest minimum wage in the North, it sits close to the middle among minimum wages in the provinces.

As of today in the South, only Ontario and Alberta pay a higher minimum than the Yukon: $11.40 and $12.50 respectively.

British Columbia will raise its minimum wage to $11.25 in September of 2017.

In the Northwest Territories, the minimum wage is $12.50, and in Nunavut, it’s $13.

Of course, the cost of living is generally higher in the North, and the Yukon is no exception.

Hanson said an NDP priority is to bring down the cost of living for low-income earners by expanding affordable housing and creating new programs to help with the costs of transportation and other life necessities.

“We know that this will be a transition for the small business community,” she said, referring to the minimum wage hike.

“That’s why we’re phasing our increase in over the course of our mandate, in consultation with the business community.”

Last June, the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition estimated that two working adults must each earn $19.12 per hour ($34,798.40 a year) in order to support decent lifestyles for themselves and two young children.

This “living wage” would allow those family members to lead healthy lives and participate in their community without being hampered by the constant stress of making ends meet.

The coalition’s living wage was calculated based on methodolgy used by the Canadian Living Wage Framework.

Hanson acknowledged the more than $4-per-hour gap between the NDP’s proposed minimum wage and the anti-poverty coalition’s estimated living wage.

Part of what makes the living wage in Whitehorse so high, said Hanson, is the lack of affordable housing. This is another issue the NDP plans to address during the campaign, she said.

The NDP chose the $15 figure because it’s a wage that a person could “eke out an existence on,” said Hanson.

“It’s not the living wage, but we have to start somewhere,” she said.

With an NDP government, the Yukon wouldn’t be the only jurisdiction to set its sights on a $15 minimum wage target.

Alberta’s government said it will raise the base wage to $15 by 2018.

The NDP in Nova Scotia tabled a bill in the Province House this spring that would see its minimum wage raised to $15 by 2019.

The president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce, however, does not appreciate the NDP’s “arbitrary” approach to adjusting the territory’s minimum wage.

“What we would like to see is a dialogue,” Rick Karp told the Star this morning.

“Instead of being arbitrary and saying $15 ... we have to make the business community, which is a huge employer in town, sustainable.”

Raising the minimum wage by 35 per cent in five years would have a “huge impact” on small businesses in the Yukon, he said.

The chamber would like to see conversations happen between the Yukon government and the business community about how to handle increasing the minimum wage.

“We’re not saying don’t, what we’re saying is let’s do it in a fashion that’s amenable to the community itself so its not a huge jump, so its not inflationary, so the business community can prepare for it,” he said.

Karp cited the Conference Board of Canada’s chilling, near-term predication for the Yukon’s economy: that it will shrink by 7.7 per cent in 2017.

“This is a very difficult time for business, and for people living in Yukon,” he said.

“Are we looking at layoffs? What’s going to happen?”

Hanson maintains that there is “generally, across the board, support” for paying workers a “decent wage.”

When asked if he had been consulted by the NDP about the possibility of raising the minimum wage, Karp said today’s announcement is the first he’d heard on the topic.

“If anyone was proposing going from $11.07 to $15, it would not be well-received in the business community,” he said.

At Well-Read Books this morning, Hanson shifted blame to the Yukon government.

She said it chose to buy goods and services from big companies from the Outside instead of from Yukon companies, which could in turn pass those earnings down to their employees.

Raising wages in the Yukon would be good for the local economy, said Hanson, as people would spend those extra dollars inside the territory’s borders.

“A low-income earner is not spending their money on trips Outside, on fancy flights to someplace,” she said.

“Every dollar that low-income earner earns in Mayo or Watson Lake or Whitehorse is spent in that community on local businesses, whether it be food, or gas, or you name it.”

NDP MLA Jan Stick has been a co-owner of Well-Read Books for 17 years and spoke briefly at this morning’s announcement.

She used her shop as an example of a small business that’s making higher wages for its employees work.

Well-Read Books employs seven people, mostly part-time. Three of them make more than $15.

Stick said paying above the minimum wage has helped her keep staff turnover low.

“We’ve made it a goal,” she said. “It’s doable.”

See more election coverage and letters.

Comments (29)

Up 9 Down 10

voting is messed up again on Oct 21, 2016 at 8:34 pm

Once again, when I hit a thumbs up for people in support of raising the minimum wage, it automatically also does a THUMBS DOWN. Whoever is messing around with the voting is truly a loser and is opposed to the NDP on this issue.

Up 8 Down 4

STEPhan on Oct 21, 2016 at 8:29 pm

@mark. So I'm the problem because I invested in a tool for my job, which allows me to rent a room in a house? No cottage, boat, or million dollar home. Room in a house.....even though I make a good wage I still can't afford to even live on my own let alone think about buying a house..... like I said....cost of living.
Why can't a 17 year old living with their parents, saving for their education make $11 an hour to sell me a reasonably priced product for my profession so I can in turn try to continue to scrape by?
As far as "the working poor" comment is concerned....I kind of take that as a bit of an insult that I make an investment in good quality tools for my current employment, because good tools do make a difference in work quality...and I want to keep my job...
I tell you...nearly everyone is the working poor....the more you make, the more you spend....but I certainly don't consider a hammer for work to be a luxury item....

Up 5 Down 4

Hoby Irwin on Oct 21, 2016 at 6:47 pm

Most of the posters seem to have an unrealistic grasp of minimum wage earners. A study was just released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative of a survey they did of minimum wage jobs in BC.
82% are not teenagers, they are 20 or older
39% are 35 or older
60% are women
58%work full time
68% do not live at home with their parents
51% work for large corporations of 100 employees or more.
These are real people who are being kept below the poverty line. Why is it the majority of people opposed to raising the minimum wage are rich people and business owners?
There are alternatives
http://nextshark.com/mark-dayton-billionaire-rich-taxes/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/minimum-wage-increases-are-supercharging-economy-says-u-s-multimillionaire-1.3124917

Up 8 Down 6

Mark Sanders on Oct 21, 2016 at 4:22 pm

Stephan

The working poor buy some of their tools at the Sally Ann. A hammer would go for about $1.25 to $1.50 there, although you would not expect to see an Eastwing or a more expensive one at the SA.

Your post highlights the real issue.

You can afford to overpay ($84) for a $40 hammer while an underemployed person will help sell it on an $11/hour wage. If the working poor can afford their own housing it's likely a trailer. The business owner then reaps lots of profits, is a member in good standing with the Chamber of Commerce and he or she owns one of the most expensive homes in town and has a large boat and cabin and expensive cars.

Up 13 Down 4

Stephan on Oct 20, 2016 at 8:02 pm

Ps....didn't think minimum wage jobs were meant to live on...would make sense to fill those jobs with the young folks to learn how to work...start earning money to save for school etc.....not to support Jane q public and her three kids....because that cost will only get passed on to the middle/upper middle class like everything else does.

Up 8 Down 5

Stephan on Oct 20, 2016 at 7:58 pm

Wages? Let's talk about the cost of living....just paid $84 for a hammer that runs you $40 down south..... did it really cost $44 to ship that darn thing up on a truck with a thousand other things? Don't even get me started on the cost of housing...
The wages in this place are already way too high for most cases....I bet tfw love this idea though....

Up 14 Down 3

Roger on Oct 20, 2016 at 7:49 pm

Minimum wage....in the Yukon? Thought that was over $20. The only place in Canada you can get an average laybor job and make high 20's to low 30's with little to no needed qualifications.
The majority of the people that this effects is temp foreign workers... who really are only here because either the employers don't want to pay a decent wage and/or no ones wants the base job stocking shelves or working a drive through.
Yukon....just seen job postings for bus drivers who can make $33 an hour....or get a job at the CBC cleaning the ice for $32....maybe be a receptionist for $24..mow lawns for just over $20 bucks an hour for gosh sakes. .. Yukoners don't know how lucky they are.

Up 11 Down 8

ProScience Greenie on Oct 20, 2016 at 10:56 am

It was the Yukon Party and federal conservatives doing the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce types that ran the TFW and Nominee programs at full throttle with no oversight Mark. All about cheap subservient labor and all mostly from one country way over on the other side of the globe.

Some one has to clean the toilets M. They should get a good enough wage with job security to be able to raise a family with a warm roof over their head and food on the table.

Not everybody has what it takes to go to school or upgrade. Just the way it is. They deserve a fair life. Nobody should look down their noses at these people.

Up 18 Down 22

Good Work on Oct 19, 2016 at 4:18 pm

Happy to see that at least one party is committed to making life more affordable for low-income Yukoners by raising the minimum wage. $11.07 an hour is a joke.

Up 36 Down 11

M on Oct 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

I see people talking about social inequality a lot and I have to ask, is it fair that a janitor working at YG makes 85-90% of the wage of a journeyman carpenter in this town while having better benefits than said carpenter in many cases?

If not everyone puts forward the same amount of effort or doesn't bother to get an education, should they all be compensated equally?
If someone pursues a higher education, are their contributions equal to those of a high school drop out in the average case?

Why do people feel the need for everyone to be equal when clearly not everyone puts forward a similar effort or level of contribution and what is wrong with a meritocracy?

Up 17 Down 13

Moose on Oct 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

Conservative values? So you mean greed and ignorance. Pretending that the money you make at work was done so in a vacuum. That's why taxes are so evil right? Its not like you benefit from having an education system, prison system, roads, healthcare, welfare, mental health institutions,.......nope, not you!! You live outside of all that socialist crap and made your money and happy life through hard-work alone!! I bet your family never benefited from any of that stuff either.

Up 25 Down 27

Mark on Oct 18, 2016 at 8:04 pm

Well I can see all the smiling Foreign workers now and I also see Trudeau bringing in more refugees as his destructive wrath upon Canadians continues. Between the wacko Green Party, the Lying Liberals, and the Socialist NDP. Why should we work ? Oh ya.....some of us have Conservative values.

Up 24 Down 8

Adam Smith on Oct 18, 2016 at 7:58 pm

I like this at face value. If the NDP also committed to limit all public sector wage increases for the next 5 years to the inflation rate I would actually believe it.

Up 11 Down 9

Atom on Oct 18, 2016 at 6:54 pm

The problem here is the increase in the cost of living brought on over the past 12 years or so......because we're like...Vancouver....no Toronto....anyway there's a lot of folks here from those places now due to employment policy, and inaction making land available combined with the fake mineral boom has created a very convenient housing crunch. Which is cooling some though don't ask a realtor ('oh money's cheap now, you can find creative ways to afford this mortgage') as they wouldn't admit it and may have to charge you a fee. Keep in mind this directly coincides with the YPs latest terms in office. Lots of old boys/girls have had a great run. Shame

Up 11 Down 9

June Jackson on Oct 18, 2016 at 5:28 pm

There are many people living in the Yukon at present without good prospects. The very business owner griping about $15. an hour is the same one paying refugee's, TFWs, Nominee's, $12.08 an hour or minimum wage. People in business are not running a charity program. I choose to believe, while knowing personally that it is not always true, that business owners will pay a living wage to keep a good well trained employee.

That being said the minimum wage was introduced to take aim at the inherent imbalance in power between employers and low-wage workers that had pushed wages down to poverty levels, increasing the burden on government through welfare, food banks etc. An appropriate wage floor effectively substitutes for the bargaining power that low-wage workers lack, when they do not have a union to bargain for them. When low-end wages rise, poverty and inequality are reduced. A person with a job and pride will always try to better their employment opportunities. A person on welfare will not.

Contrary to comments here, minimum wage is not an entry/student/youth level wage. Most low income earners do not fit the low-wage stereotype of a teenager with a summer job. "Their average age is 35; most work full time; more than one-fourth are parents; and, on average, they earn half of their families’ total income." Look around Whitehorse in our hotels, restaurants, boutiques, big box stores..how many 14 year old's do you see?

Up 24 Down 17

CJ on Oct 18, 2016 at 1:20 pm

I love these comments that a minimum wage is intended to motivate you to bigger goals. And the argument's counterpart that stimulating the economy is the answer. Why does this philosophy depend on a sizeable portion of the population working at a wage that has them struggling? Then compounding the struggle by suggesting it's their own failure to not access things that cost money that keeps them stuck? It's truly a cruel stance.

Up 47 Down 22

brilliant work ndp on Oct 18, 2016 at 9:14 am

So you are going to increase the minum wage and then take all that increase back in the form of a carbon tax. All the while increasing the costs of everything. The logic of these marxists is mind boggling.

Up 29 Down 31

A smarter move is to reduce and have low income workers on Oct 17, 2016 at 9:57 pm

pay very little or no tax at all. This is proving to be a mistake in other areas and kills tourism altogether, food, everything - plus a carbon tax. Wow Yukoners do you want this?
Why do the Liberals and NDP not know how to improve our life style, but just kill us with taxes.

Up 46 Down 20

Jack on Oct 17, 2016 at 8:50 pm

NDP should be leading the way to show people how to achieve a maximum wage through education and perseverance, not this minimum wage which aims to keep people trapped in these jobs as 'careers' rather than steps on the job-ladder. In life, everything is earned and giving away a year a of tuition is not the same as earning it.

NDP are part of the problem for these people, not the solution.
Good grief!

Up 20 Down 40

CJ on Oct 17, 2016 at 8:08 pm

It's going to be fascinating to see how this election shakes out. I find this a pretty bold policy from the NDP, and it could be that it's rewarded. There might just be more people affected by this than have to worry about a few extra cents for gas. I see people at the grocery store counting out lots of change to pay the cashier, and at Canadian Tire using CT cash. There's a fair amount of working people struggling to get by, and when they get money, they need things they can get here in town. Most legitimate businesses must be paying that much by now. There's lots of stores with little staff turnover, so I figure they're treating them right.

I like what the NDP is doing in this campaign; they're steady, consistent and not reactive. Running on things they already said in the House they stand for. I wish them a lot of luck.

Up 33 Down 21

So you have NDP wanting rent controls on Oct 17, 2016 at 7:36 pm

and a high minimum wage that will get passed to the cost of living in the Yukon. This will kill tourism because we will not be competitive. They want carbon tax, a sale tax, increase income tax.
The Yukon will die very fast.
If you own home these are the kinds of things that will kill our economy.

Up 23 Down 14

J on Oct 17, 2016 at 7:28 pm

As usual this is a odd way to fix a problem with people's income. By increasing minimum wage does not mean it becomes more comfortable to live. Chances are there will be other things in the market to offset this. Instead if the government focused on boosting the economy, then people's income will grow. In a flourishing economy there is more jobs and demand. If you believe you do better work than your co workers, chances are you are able to find a higher compensation job sooner. That is the correct way to balance this issue, not increase minimum wage. NDP is looking at a problem from the middle, not the beginning or end.

Up 41 Down 17

Tradesman on Oct 17, 2016 at 5:56 pm

Wasn't the minimum wage the incentive for people to become better educated, or get a trade?

Up 28 Down 26

Do It! on Oct 17, 2016 at 5:23 pm

I agree with the NDP on this one. If our statistics are anything like the rest of Canada... over half those earning minimum wage are working full time; slightly less than half are over 30; & almost 40% are the primary earners in their family. Bottom line .. Yukon's minimum wage must be a living wage.

Up 45 Down 20

Abandon Ship on Oct 17, 2016 at 4:48 pm

And the good ship NDP with Hanson at the helm sinks before it even leaves harbor once again.

Up 58 Down 58

Mark Sanders on Oct 17, 2016 at 4:35 pm

Thanks NDP
This is required to make people's lives better.

Some people do not have many options for employment and there has to be a minimum pay level which does not make them the working poor.
Many of the local business which cry about minimum wage increases have wealthy owners.

Up 67 Down 50

huh? on Oct 17, 2016 at 4:34 pm

Is minimum wage the base rate to pay kids for part time work or a career wage. Anyone who is expecting to survive on minimum wage should go to school/trade/work harder/advance.
Keep minimum wage low, it will motivate kids to work hard and achieve more.

Up 69 Down 36

ProScience Greenie on Oct 17, 2016 at 4:18 pm

Have to agree with the NDP on a $15/hour minimum wage. No sympathy for Karp and the rest at the Chamber of Commerce. What's a few extra cents for a burger meal to keep our fellow Yukoners at a living wage in this over-expensive territory.

Up 61 Down 52

jc on Oct 17, 2016 at 4:07 pm

This woman better give her head a shake. And while she's at it, talk to the Unions, because they will just raise their hourly wage accordingly. NDP just hasn't learned a thing - especially how to create jobs.

Add your comments or reply via Twitter @whitehorsestar

In order to encourage thoughtful and responsible discussion, website comments will not be visible until a moderator approves them. Please add comments judiciously and refrain from maligning any individual or institution. Read about our user comment and privacy policies.

Your name and email address are required before your comment is posted. Otherwise, your comment will not be posted.