Meena Wong wants to give Vancouverites a raise. COPE’s mayoral candidate announced last week she wants to help residents cope with the high cost of living here by implementing a local minimum wage of $15 per hour — $4.75 higher than the current provincial minimum — if the left-leaning civic party wins a mandate in the upcoming election.
“The people of Vancouver need a raise, especially those who work the hardest and get paid the least, hospitality workers, retail and food workers, caregivers and more,” she told reporters at Oakridge Centre Thursday morning. “These people are often women, people of colour, immigrants, indigenous people and students.”
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the living wage for Vancouver is $20.10 per hour, the amount of minimum earnings that allow full-time workers to meet the basic needs of their families and reach past low-income tax thresholds. COPE’s first step would be to ensure all city employees make at least this much per hour, which most of them already do, and then ensure contractors working for the city also pay their employees the same. COPE would then seek an amendment to the Vancouver Charter that would give the city the power to force businesses to also pay a local minimum wage starting with large corporations.
“The rationale being that the provincial minimum wage is not appropriate at all for Vancouver and she would set the minimum wage at $15 with big chains stores and hotels, like they’re doing in Seattle and San Francisco,” explained party spokesperson Tristan Markle. “We haven’t set exactly how we are defining a big business.”
Seattle approved a phased-in $15 overall minimum wage in June, while San Francisco residents will vote on a $15 minimum next month. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has promised to bring the city’s minimum wage to $13.25 an hour by 2017. Closer to home, the City of New Westminster approved a living wage of $19.62 per hour, almost double the prevailing minimum wage of $10.25, for its employees in 2010.
New Westminster city councillor Jonathan Cote, who is also running for mayor, said there are no plans to expand the civic policy to include private businesses.
“We don’t have the Vancouver Charter, so I can’t speak to what extra authority the City of Vancouver might be able to look at but this isn’t something the City of New Westminster would be able to tackle under our legislation,” Cote told the Courier. “That is beyond the scope of what we are trying to accomplish and beyond what we think New Westminster has the mandate to do.”
Cote added he is proud the city was the first municipality in Canada to adopt a living wage policy.
“When we introduced it, we heard from people who said the sky was going to fall and that hasn’t happened. The financial impact has been less than $400,000 dollars [a year] for the city and to me that is money well spent and has gone into lower income families that are working and dedicating their lives to making New Westminster a better place.”
A report from the Fraser Institute released in January argues municipal laws that boost the wages of poorer workers can threaten job prospects for the very people most likely to face poverty.
“When governments impose a wage floor higher than what would prevail in a competitive market, employers find ways to operate with fewer workers,” wrote author Charles Lammam. “While the more productive workers who keep their jobs gain through higher wages, their gain comes at the expense of other workers who lose as a result of fewer employment opportunities. Young and low skilled workers usually end up as collateral damage in the process.”
The report by the conservative think tank argued forcing businesses to pay higher wages makes them respond by reducing overall employment, favouring more highly skilled workers and cutting back on hours and training. Lammam examined minimum wage increases across Canada from 1981 to 2004 and concluded that raising the minimum wage by 10 per cent resulted in a four to six per cent increase in the number of families living below the poverty line.
The election is Nov. 15
