{"id":21848,"date":"2018-10-10T17:02:18","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T21:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21848"},"modified":"2018-10-17T16:24:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:24:50","slug":"protesters-fight-for-minimum-wage-increase-at-mpp-lunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/protesters-fight-for-minimum-wage-increase-at-mpp-lunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters fight for minimum wage increase at MPP lunch"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Community activists said they were reaching dead ends getting a response from Deputy Premier Christine Elliott on their fight to maintain what was a planned increase to Ontario\u2019s Minimum Wage in January. So, on Friday morning, they took their message direct to Ms. Elliott.
\nRepresentatives from The Fight for $15 & Fairness, a grassroots organization advocating for a living wage, the York Region Food Network and more, brought out their banners and unfurled their placards outside the Royal Venetian on Industrial Parkway South where Ms. Elliott was due to talk business issues at a luncheon hosted by the Aurora Chamber of Commerce.
\nThe group was responding to a move by the Ontario Government earlier in the week to cancel the increase in minimum wage to $15 that was expected to come this January while reviewing and scrapping components on Bill 148.
\nBill 148 was brought in by the previous Provincial Government and legislated not only an increase to minimum wage, but new provisions regarding paid sick days, personal emergency leave, and more.
\n\u201cThis is the perfect opportunity because Christine Elliott is inside, who has been avoiding all our attempts to make a meeting in the office,\u201d said Jessa McLean of 15 & Fairness prior to Ms. Elliott\u2019s arrival at the banquet hall. \u201cNot only is she inside, she\u2019s meeting with business and these are also the people we\u2019re trying to speak to because these are the people in the ears of our politicians trying to scrap the $15 minimum wage. We know it is not workers calling into their representatives asking them to lower the minimum wage; these are people that we need to get out of our politicians\u2019 ears and we want to make it clear to the public too that we\u2019re here on their side, we\u2019re willing to speak to both of these parties here and now, if they are willing.\u201d
\nWhen Ms. Elliott arrived for the luncheon, she spoke briefly to the assembled demonstrators and accepted petitions they hoped to present.
\nInside, the Newmarket-Aurora MPP said she told them she would \u201cmeet with them to hear their specific concerns\u201d and see if they can \u201cfind some common ground.\u201d
\n\u201cI always try to do that,\u201d said Ms. Elliott of finding that common ground, \u201cbut I would say that we have to balance the needs of people currently at a minimum wage to continue to get increases. But, I think from a business\u2019 perspective, that has to be on a basis that is consistent and evenly spaced so that businesses can absorb the increase [so] businesses can stay in business and continue to provide those jobs.
\n\u201cThere are two sides to this and I think we need to find balance to ensure that people get a decent living wage, but also that businesses will know what they are going to be facing and\u2026be able to plan their business activities according to the increases.\u201d
\nThe increases brought in by the previous Liberal government, she added were \u201csignificant\u201d and brought in quickly, \u201cmaking it really hard for business.\u201d
\nLunch moderator Brendan Black and Ms. Elliott delved further into the ramifications of reviewing Bill 148, with Mr. Black asking Ms. Elliott what Ontarians can expect as far as potential changes to the legislation.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t deal with any specifics, but I can tell you that Bill 148 is under discussion right now because all of us as MPPs\u2026heard these concerns with respect to this Bill,\u201d said Ms. Elliott. \u201cIt is not just about the increases in minimum wage that was anticipated coming up in January 2019\u2026 We heard about some of the issues with respect to vacation pay, days away with numerous other provisions that were causing a lot of stress and a lot of extra expense for businesses.
\n\u201cWe are listening to the concerns of people who have shared with us. I think that is our responsibility to do so because we want businesses to stay in business. We also want you to continue to be able to hire people. We know that many people are actually losing their jobs right now because of the increase in minimum wage because employers either have to cut back on their hours or they have to cut back on staff. Nobody wants to see that happen. We want to see people being employed and we want to see employers doing well so they can continue to employ people.\u201d
\nThe 15 & Fairness campaigners might have achieved the day\u2019s objective of getting their message to the Deputy Premier, but they say they are not going away with out a fight. Ms. McLean said there are \u201ctons of misconceptions\u201d out there about the minimum wage, perpetuated she said by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
\nA minimum wage, she said, boosts purchasing power across the Regions and small businesses will see the benefits \u201cdespite the increase in labour costs.\u201d
\n\u201cThey can\u2019t come out and tell us who deserves the poverty wage and why that is okay,\u201d said Ms. McLean. \u201cUntil they can answer that question, we can\u2019t accept less than a $15 minimum wage, which hardly puts you above the StatsCanada poverty line to begin with. The fight isn\u2019t over.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Community activists said they were reaching dead ends getting a response from Deputy Premier Christine Elliott on their fight to maintain what was a planned increase to Ontario\u2019s Minimum Wage in January. So, on Friday morning, they took their message direct to Ms. Elliott. Representatives from The Fight for $15 & Fairness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2018-10-11-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Go","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 09:30:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}