With the cost of living soaring in recent times my guess is a lot of these folks earning the minimum wage must be wondering why we have a system which chooses to pay its politicians and public sector workers very generous wages and pensions, and at the same time chooses to keep B.C.'s minimum wage at $8.00 an hour for the last 9 years.

1) Check out inflation over the last 9 years, and raise it to that level.

2) Index the minimum wage to inflation.

I do have to love the way politicians always make minimum wage go up to nice round numbers, and giant leaps every few (or in BC's case more than a few) years.

Seriously it does not have to be a nice round number, everyone’s payroll has to be run thru EI, CPP, and all the various taxes, compared to the math you need to calculate that out, multiplying 37.5 hours x 9.14 an hour is child’s play.

Also the various businesses they are trying to protect with the low wages, can probably deal with a small 4% +/- raise each year to deal with inflation, and adjust pricing and business model to deal with it.

However when they stock pile up these increases for 10 years then have the politicians roll out a 25% raise, what is a business to do? The shock is just too much when their payroll goes up 25%, you have to jack you prices overnight, and customers are not happy when you raise you prices by the level overnight, as unless you have more profit in a business than you should, you can’t bring it up slowly.

do you know any business that pays minimum wage!my guess..not many...pay peanuts..get monkeys!

Australia'a minimum wage is $15.00 Guess who the suckers are in this debate. Anyone who is struggling to make a living wage.

What they should really be wondering is how they, or anybody else, will be advantaged by the higher prices that will quickly more than negate the additional purchasing power given them by an increase in the minimum wage.

We all know that $ 8, or even $ 10, is not what most of us would call a "living wage". The trick is to find a way to raise it to an adequate level to maintain a generally acceptable minimum standard of living WITHOUT the additional cost to employers flowing through into prices. This can't be done the way the BC Fed, NDP, other concerned citizens, etc., are currently proposing.

Currently, a raise in the minimum wage will very quickly be followed by a call for a raise to all other wages above that minimum. To keep THOSE employees already a little higher up the wage scale at least as far ahead of those below them that they are now. We know, from past experience, that this WILL happen.

We also know, or should by now, that there are costs additional to the wage increase itself that are borne solely by employers, and will not be received by employees. Yet these additional costs will have to be recovered from higher prices, too. Some are for things like increases to WCB premiums, EI, and CPP payments.

All that really leads to is our working with bigger figures ~ "inflation" ~ there's no REAL advantage to employees in additional purchasing power, while the "international competitiveness" so many seem so worried we maintain is further eroded.

Why doesn't the BC Fed, if it truly does have the best interests of workers at heart, (and I think it does), broaden its horizons beyond repeatedly trying the same old thing? Calling again for the same flawed prescription of wage increases that've already decimated the membership of the Unions it collectively represents?

Instead of making another demand for higher wages, make one instead for increased PURCHASING POWER through LOWER PRICES, leaving wage levels right where they are. This is not the impossibility it may at first sight seem.

Recognise that modern accounting collectively mis-represents ACTUAL costs, which are FALLING with each increase in efficiency and productivity technology has made possible through ever increasing displacement of labour.

Collectively, as Consumers, we are quite properly charged with the "depreciation" of that technolgy, as it wears out or becomes obsolete. We pay for that in the price of goods and services we purchase.

But we are never collectively CREDITED fully with the "appreciation" ~ the increase in our ability as a society to actually produce and deliver goods and services as, when, and where required or desired ~ that modern technolgy has enabled. This collective appreciation must be greater than collective depreciation, or real progress would be impossible. And we are progressing ~ albeit at a fraction of the potential we could be.

At present, this puts us all in the interesting position of having to try to pay for both the 'product' and the 'plant' that made it, with incomes that are inadequate to do BOTH . And only ever getting delivery of the 'product', (and a decreasing amount of it at that).

We don't want the 'plant'. As individuals, it's of no use to us whatsoever. But we do need the 'product', and at a price we CAN AFFORD to pay.

That price can be attained through a technique of credit, by continually relating overall 'production' to overall 'consumption'in any same given time period.

Physically, the former is virtually always greater than the latter. Over any extended period it must be, because no one can 'consume' what hasn't been 'produced'.

And so long as this condition attends "debt-free" credit can be issued to rebate prices (to Consumers), allowing goods and services to be effectively accessed by them AT LESS THAN 'FINANCIAL' COST, while retailers and manufacturers can obtain prices as currently computed 'financially'.

There is NO "inflation" involved, because Consumers, all of us, minimum waged and better off, are getting goods and services at a LOWER PRICE. There is no increase in taxation necessary. The issue of "debt-free" new credit this way, by the Bank of Canada, allows for the full cancellation of existing credit (issued as debt by the Banks), something which is currently not possible.

Our "international competive position" , and supposed need for "employment" therefrom, for those who are hung up on such things, is preserved.

The alternative is a society that repeatedly tries the "same old thing", with the same old results ~ ongoing 'inflation', and workers and their representatives engaging in the hopelessness of playing 'catch-up' as they continually, and needlessly, fall ever further 'financially' behind.

Last time I looked, Australia is a major exporter of raw materials . Same as us. Their dollar is worth a little more than ours, so our economies are roughly similar. The main difference is that most of us have been brain washed by the Harper Conservatives, and the Campbell Liberals, that we cannot afford a more equitable society. Lets face it, one of our local MLA's runs a business that makes money off the backs of low paid employees. As long as people like that are in power, nothing is going to change.

I was just in Ontario working and found the cost of a breakfast (bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, toast, coffee) was pretty common to get for about $6, a decent lunch for $8, here in BC the same meals are $12-$14.

Isn't Ontario's minimum wage higher than BC's?

move to Australia

BC Lions make more than $8 bucks an hour AND they don't have to wait months for an MRI. Are we being hypothetically critical here? Whining constantly about the "darn" HST and going to a football game where you have to pay HST? Maybe looking at history I'm sure the ancient Romans didn't charge HST on their "bread and circuses". Buy a fifty thousand dollar pick up truck then bitch about the price of cauliflower. The whole world is full of hypocrites. Makes me wanna have a drink. But I won't. That's too overtaxing fer me. Two faced hypocrites.

Good points vedesign, but what would all the activists do with a common sense approach like setting a rate and indexing it to CPI? There goes city council debating the issue. The federation of Labour would do what now? Apply the concept to all public sector wages and you have cut a massive industry of lawyers and union leadership that do nothing but negotiate. What would they do with all the dues collected? Top up their members pensions? Far to much common sense to that approach.

You see, when you mention Australia, you fail to realize that a car will cost you $40,000 to get a run about. Tipping is not customary, so your wage is it when your are a waitress. A pair of jeans is $100, a name brand jeans will be $200 plus.

Thus looking at the wage rate is not an accurate assessment.

Saying all that, can the economy handle a minimum wage of $10.00 an hour, I say, set it for $9.00 starting Jan 1 2011, than $10 on Jan 1 2012. I run a small business, my minimum wage is $15.00, top rate is $33.00
and heck i'm not even union.

Indexing wouldn't work in any case, and would likely only make the whole situation worse instead of better. All you're really doing is working with ever bigger figures. You have to increase the purchasing power of EACH dollar received by Consumers, not just the number of dollars. Ones that will still be costed into prices, maintaining, if not widening, the "gap" between the overall rates that incomes are distributed and prices are generated.

Aren't those Gordon Campbell look alikes afraid for their lives? I don't think it's very smart to dress up like him.

He Spoke: Glad to hear you pay at least $15/hr in your small business. However a quick Google search for "Levis jeans in Sydney" returns prices of $50. Similarly, a brand new Toyota four door turbo diesel truck can be had for $56,000, not much much more than you would pay at Northern Toyota.
Furthermore the O.E.C.D., through their price parity ratio, figures the cost of living to be 5% less in Australia than in Canada.