Meanwhile, many small business owners in Ontario started off the year by giving employees a raise to the new provincial minimum wage of $14 an hour (which goes up to $15 on January 1, 2019). Supporters and social advocates praise the move towards a “living wage” while critics slam the “20.7 percent increase” over the old rate of $11.60. Students under 18 years of age who work less than 28 hours a week also get a boost, from $10.90 to $13.15 an hour. Other legislated changes include equal pay for seasonal workers who do comparable work to year-round employees, providing a minimum three weeks paid vacation to employees after five years, and enhanced medical leave coverage.
But if you’re not happy about it, be careful who you gripe to about it as at least one Toronto restaurant, Kaboom Chicken, learned after posting a price increase notice on its social media feeds and blaming Premier Kathleen Wynne for it. Queue Twitter rage.
(In his first summer job, managing editor Allan Britnell earned him $3.25 an hour flipping burgers at a greasy spoon in the early 1990s. But he’s not complaining…)