It is Monday that the announced increase in the minimum wage in Quebec will come into effect. It will thus go from $14.25 to $15.25 per hour.
According to the Ministry of Labor, some 298,900 employees will benefit from this increase, including 164,100 women, particularly in areas such as retail trade, catering and accommodation.
The Government of Quebec had announced this increase of $1 per hour, specifying that it made it possible to maintain the target of 50% of the average hourly wage “while taking into account the evolution of the economic context”.
“One more increase”
But on the side of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which brings together small and medium-sized businesses, it is said that it is “another increase that is added” to those of electricity rates, raw materials and others.
“What worries us is the accumulation” of increases, which ends up weighing on the shoulders of SMEs. And, ultimately, it helps drive up the price of the products. “Small business will be weakened,” believes François Vincent, vice-president for Quebec at the CFIB.
“It has a domino effect. If I have a part-time student, at the entry wage which is the minimum wage… it is clear that there will be pressure from other employees to receive the same treatment, “said Mr. Vincent .
He would have liked the Quebec government to at least support SMEs by reviewing the taxation of this type of business.
“Clearly not enough”
At the Collective for a Quebec Without Poverty, Virginie Larivière believes, on the contrary, that such an increase is not sufficient, with the inflation that is rampant.
“It’s too little too late. We have been asking for $15 an hour since 2016, so obviously $15.25 in 2023 is clearly not enough, ”she says.
The social and labor groups that launched the “Minimum 15” campaign at the time are now calling for the minimum wage to be raised to $18 an hour.
“It is the minimum threshold. This is a claim we have been making for two years. Of course, with the inflation of the last few years, we can think that $18 an hour is not even enough to think of being out of poverty,” argues M.me River.
“We still have to ask ourselves: do we in Quebec want to maintain the discourse that it is through work that we get out of poverty? she concludes.