Minimum wage panel to review impact on businesses

By Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean Times Contributor

More relief could soon be announced for businesses in Alberta.
Last week the Alberta government introduced members of its minimum wage panel who will be tasked with reviewing the labour market impact of wage hikes over the last four years.
The panel chair is Joseph Marchand, associate professor of economics at the University of Alberta. Other panel members include Anindya Sen, economics professor at the University of Waterloo; Mark von Schellwitz, vice-president of Restaurants Canada (Western Canada); Richard Truscott, VP Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) for B.C. and Alberta; Jason Stanton, owner, Running Room; Branko Culo, owner, Express Employment and member of Alberta Enterprise Group; Delphine Borger, server, Blink Restaurant, Calgary; Rachel Donnelly, server, Chop Steakhouse; and, Nicoly Lyckama, server, Blink Restaurant, Calgary.
“By establishing this panel of experts, we are keeping another platform promise and making progress on our common-sense plan to restore jobs and prosperity to our province,” said Jason Copping, Alberta Minister of Labour and Immigration.
In 2017, Marchand stated that a minimum wage increase could, according to economic theory, result in the loss of 25,000 jobs in Alberta, adding “any future considerations of increases to the minimum wage in Alberta should take current and forecasted energy prices into account.
“While rapid increases in energy prices have been the proven way to effectively stimulate labour demand for Alberta in the past, this does not seem likely to happen in the near future” Marchand added.
Sen has been of the same mind. “Steep increases to the minimum wage (such as Ontario’s move to $15 an hour) have a high likelihood of leading to more unemployed immigrants as well as more poverty.”
Restaurants Canada, an organization that represents more than 30,000 restaurants across the country was part of a campaign in the spring to highlight the rising costs to businesses. “These are small entrepreneurs who put their life savings into their businesses. (Restaurant owners who took part in the campaign) felt that the combination of a weak economy and all (the previous government’s) policy changes just made it impossible for them to stay in business” said von Schellwitz.
After the minimum wage for students was decreased on June 26, 2019, Richard Truscott of the CFIB said that “providing more flexibility on the wage rates is really good news for business.”
The Alberta government has been trying to stimulate the economy with tax cuts, announcing a one per cent decrease to corporate taxes that came into effect July 1, 2019 and will be followed by one per cent each January until the corporate tax rate reaches eight per cent from its previous 12 per cent.
Small businesses making less than $500,000 annually will not benefit from the corporate tax cut.
Alberta restaurant receipts have been setting records for the past three years, according to Statistics Canada. Alberta restaurants, including fast food, full-service dining, bars and pubs, and special food providers such as catering posted a three-year record high of $810 million in sales in December 2018, up from $740 million in December 2015.