Media advisory: Economic experts available to comment on positive impact of minimum wage raise

August 11, 2017

TORONTO, ONTARIO – With a business lobby-led economic impact assessment on Ontario’s Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, due out this August, economic experts are available to discuss the findings upon release, as well as the decades of research on the impacts of raising the minimum wage.

Ontario’s Bill 148 proposes to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 1, 2019, among other labour reforms. More than 50 Canadian economic experts penned an open letter in July in support of a $15 minimum wage in Ontario, stating that “doom-and-gloom” predictions about the negative impacts of wage increases on job rates simply aren’t supported by the weight of economic evidence.

Experts available for comment include Lars Osberg, Dalhousie University, former president of the Canadian Economics Association; Canadian Labour Congress senior economist Angella MacEwen; David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA); Sheila Block, CCPA Ontario senior economist; and Michal Rozworski, Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.

 

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For more information or to arrange interviews, contact Alyssa O’Dell, CCPA media and public relations officer, at 613-563-1341 x307, [email protected] or cell 343-998-7575

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