Minimum wage in Canada

Under the Canadian Constitution, the responsibility for enacting and enforcing labour laws, including the minimum wage, rests with the ten provinces as well as the three territories which have been granted this power by federal legislation. Some provinces allow lower wages to be paid to liquor servers and other gratuity earners or to inexperienced employees.

The federal government in past years set its own minimum wage rates for workers in federal jurisdiction industries (railways for example). In 1996, however, the federal minimum wage was re-defined to be the general adult minimum wage rate of the province or territory where the work is performed. This means, for example, that a railway company could not legally pay a worker in British Columbia less than C$13.85 per hour regardless of the worker's experience.

Demographics

In 2013, 39.8% of minimum wage workers were between the ages of 15 and 19; in 1997, it was 36%. 50.2% of workers in this age group were paid minimum wage in 2013, an increase from 31.5% in 1997. Statistics Canada notes that "youth,  women and persons with a low level of education were the groups most likely to be paid at minimum wage."

Minimum wage levels by jurisdiction 

Assuming a 40-hour workweek and 52 paid weeks per year, the annual gross employment income of an individual earning the minimum wage in Canada is between C$23,545.60 (in Saskatchewan) and C$31,200 (in Alberta).

The following table lists the hourly minimum wages for adult workers in each province and territory of Canada. The provinces which have their minimum wages in bold allow for lower wages under circumstances which are described under the "Comments" heading.

Note: The following table can be sorted by Jurisdiction, Wage, or Effective date using the  icon.

Controversies 
Critics of the minimum wage, such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the C. D. Howe Institute, contend that minimum wage laws actually hurt the very people they purport to help by forcing employers to raise prices, reduce staff, or close down. Another critic of minimum wage increases, University of Laval economics professor Stephen Gordon, has argued that the poverty-reducing impacts of the minimum wage are overstated. In his National Post article Gordon writes:

The case for increasing the minimum wage has problems in both dimensions: the losses in total income are typically underestimated (when they are not being dismissed out of hand) and the putative reductions in income inequality are almost certainly being overstated. Let’s examine total incomes first. Labour demand curves slope down: everything else being equal, higher wages reduce the quantity of labour employers demand. And fewer people with jobs means less total income. If the theoretical point is clear — and I’m not aware of a compelling theoretical argument suggesting that employers will react to higher minimum wage by hiring more workers — the empirical evidence is not.

Other Canadian economists have supported minimum wage increases. David Green, a professor and director at the Vancouver School of Economics, has conducted extensive research on the minimum wage’s effects on the economy. In his work entitled “The Case for Increasing Minimum Wage”, Green presents a rebuttal to the critics of the minimum wage stating:

Claims that increases in the minimum wage will generate huge efficiency costs for the economy and mass unemployment are not credible. While estimates of employment losses from minimum wage increases for teenagers in Canada exist, the estimated effects on adult employment are minimal at best. Those results cannot be translated into big costs for the economy.

See also 
Minimum wage
List of minimum wages by country

References

External links

Minimum wages
Minimum wage
Canada
Category:Law-related lists
Category:Canadian labour law