Has a higher minimum wage helped Belleville residents? Opinions vary

By Liam Radford

BELLEVILLE – More money or more jobs?

That is the debate over minimum wage that was ignited locally when the Ontario government announced last week it had cancelled its predecessor’s plans to raise it to $15 per hour from the current $14 starting Jan. 1.

Poverty activists say the increase is needed to lift people. But Bay of Quinte Conservative MPP Todd Smith says creating jobs is the solution.

Christine Durant, the director of the Poverty Roundtable Hastings Prince Edward, an organization that fights poverty, said the increase to $14 from the previous $11.40, which took effect in January 2018, is still too recent to know anything concrete about the impact. But there are positive indications, she said.

“What we have heard is fairly anecdotal, and that is that people have a bit more money. We know some evidence has come out of the province from the food banks that there is less food-bank use, and that’s really a marker of a policy that works. When the minimum wage goes up and there is less food-bank use it is an indicator that these policies are working, that people have more money to actually spend on things they need. And that doubly impacts the economy.”

But Sue O’Brien, a director of Gleaners food bank, which serves the Belleville area, said no changes to the number of people using their services have been seen and Gleaners clients have not reported any benefits yet from the minimum-wage increase.

Smith, who is government house leader at Queen’s Park, said poverty is a big issue in the Belleville area, but the way for the provincial government to fight low wages is to develop more jobs.

“There’s a lot of people that are working minimum-wage jobs in the Quinte region right now,” Smith said. “And while there is certainly a need for minimum-wage workers, we believe people should have the opportunity to have good full-time jobs that have benefits. And those are the kind of jobs we’re focused on creating.”

Durant says Belleville is a strange place when it comes to employment, and employment numbers could lead to the wrong ideas.

“Employment is interesting. Again it makes this area a little bewildering. We actually have a really really low unemployment rate (about 6 per cent, according to the Centre for Workforce Development). So that should mean that people’s incomes are quite good and that we have a really low poverty rate. So we have a really low unemployment rate, but we have a really high poverty rate, and what that indicates is that the jobs that we have here aren’t paying adequately to meet needs.”

The provincial government has said it will repeal Bill 148, the legislation that increased the minimum wage $14 an hour and would have raises it again in 2019 to $15. The bill also added many protections for workers, such as new scheduling rules, equalization of pay, and emergency leave protections. The current government has said it will keep the minimum wage at $14 an hour but remove all other aspects of the legislation.

Durant said some common initiatives aimed at helping people find the jobs they need are not as effective as they could be.

“We keep hearing about these job fairs that keep taking place, and that people aren’t showing up to them,” she said. “That there are more jobs than people showing up. And I can’t help but think that you’re not getting to the people who need these jobs: the people who need  better jobs, who are looking for full-time work, who are working two or three part-time jobs, minimum-wage jobs, and can’t take the risk of missing a shift to show up to a job fair.”