Minimum wage hike insufficient, says Sudbury workers' advocate

Ontario's minimum wage increase on Friday falls short of the living wage threshold, said a workers' advocate based in Sudbury.

Scott Florence, the executive director of the Sudbury Workers Education and Advocacy Centre, said the 10-cent increase to Ontario's minimum wage, bringing it to $14.35 per hour, is a "token" and insufficient as costs for basics like food and rent continue to rise.

"You know, in a lot of these low wage minimum wage jobs are the ones that we've been saying, 'Oh, these guys are heroes, these were frontline workers, all those grocery store workers, they kept us going,'" Florence said.

"We've recognized how essential these workers really are, and yet we're not paying them enough to live on. Many people in minimum wage jobs require two or even three jobs in order to make ends meet because these minimum wage jobs are usually not full-time as well."

Florence said his organization, which advocates for workers in precarious positions, collaborated with the Ontario Living Wage network to determine the living wage for Greater Sudbury.

In 2019, the last time they did the calculation, they determined the living wage to be $16.98 per hour.

The living wage determines what a family with two working adults working full-time, and two children, would need to cover rent, utilities, food, clothing, after school activities and one evening out a month for the adults.

Florence said Ontario's minimum wage languished for nearly a decade before Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government increased it from $11.60 per hour to $14 per hour in 2018.

The world did not end," Florence said. "The economy did not tank. In fact, Ontario's GDP rose that year and unemployment dropped."

On Monday CBC News asked Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton for his message to minimum wage workers about that 10-cent-an-hour increase. He did not address the pay hike directly, but talked about Ontario's labour shortage. 

"I don't want to create an economy of minimum wage jobs. That's why, for example, I'm encouraging people to go into the skilled trades," McNaughton said. "We need people to get the training for in-demand jobs that are going to pay more so they can provide for their families."