Minimum wage hike is boon to economy

Higher minimum wages are good for the economy but you would never know it from Ontario’s experience. Their hike to $14 dollars per hour has taken an ugly turn. Seattle’s experience was quite different.

image: Toronto Star

The upset in Ontario is centered on Tim Horton franchises. Cuts to benefits have triggered public outcry in support of employees. Demonstrations took place across Canada at Tim Horton shops last Friday organized by

The franchisees, themselves, have been abused by their owners: Brazil-based Restaurant Brands International Inc. RBI has been squeezing franchisees for more profits.

Franchisees in Canada have joined their American counterparts in suing the parent company. The Canadians formed the Great White North Franchisee Association and in their statement of claim, they complained:

“Since the time of the corporate takeover of Tim Hortons, the relationship between Tim Hortons and its franchisees has become more adversarial than amicable.”

It’s a toxic business plan that has left franchisees, employees, and customers with a bad taste in their mouth that a double-double won’t sweeten. The flap is damaging the iconic Tim Hortons brand.

Seattle’s experience was quite different. Employers took the wage increase to $15 dollars an hour as a challenge. Toronto-based Lending Loop surveyed of Seattle businesses. Their CEO Cato Pastoll explained: “It kind of forced people to make some just general good business decisions (Globe and Mail, October, 2017).”

Low wages discourage productivity because cheap labour can make inefficient businesses profitable. Higher productivity involves streamlining operations and introducing technology. It’s notable that these measures are changes that employers make -low productivity is not the result of “lazy” employees.

One Seattle furniture store eliminated low-wage entry level positions and empowered employees to become more productive. One employee was so motivated that he contacted condo owners and offered deals on furniture for new tenants. The store owner was pleased with the boost in morale: “Find out what makes your staff excited and empower them to be part of it with you,”

“It’s really easy to become angry and start acting in injudicious ways,” said an owner of a nail salon in Port Angeles, Washington. He and his wife could have cut back on staff, or turned them into commissioned workers, but they streamlined operations instead. The time taken for each procedure was standardized which meant that more clients could be booked. An automated time-keeping system eliminated the time to manually fill out time sheets. Under different circumstances, staff might have resented seeing more clients a day but with an increase in wages, they were more willing to focus on work.

Contrary to the calamity predicted by some doubtful business owners, higher minimum wages don’t result in more unemployment. Studies done by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show those countries with higher wages shift employment from formerly low wage sectors such restaurants to higher wage areas such as technology.

The owners of Tim Hortons could improve profits though the introduction of technology.  I notice that McDonalds has automated kiosks where you can both order and pay for your meal.

Higher minimum wages are a boon to the economy because businesses save costs by keeping experienced workers and reducing training costs; productivity and profit margins are improved; and local economies are enhanced with worker’s new spending power.


Indigenous labour is an untapped resource


    image: Government of Canada




Indigenous citizens are the youngest, fastest growing demographic in Canada.



What would it take? The report states rather dryly:







Let’s talk about doctor’s pay


  Dr. Rita McCracken supports tax reform. Photo: Huffington Post















Leisure time at work


  image: CNBC













Guys, don’t despair when she earns more that you.

The male ego is attached to being the chief breadwinner. It’s a fictitious remnant of the cave man’s role as hunter and provider. The stereotype was perpetuated when men returned from World War II and replaced women in industrial jobs.

  image: Mother Nature Network

With the decline of industrial jobs in North America, and with more women getting a post-secondary education, women are positioned to move into professional jobs. Over the past four decades, full time jobs have increased for women while decreasing for men.

Not just men who have lost industrial jobs worry. Alan, 40, is a successful accountant and his wife, a doctor, earns more than him. At first, Alan was embarrassed by his wife’s breadwinner status. “It was a male ego thing,” he told “There was just something about it that made me feel inadequate. I knew it was illogical.” After simmering for years, the issue came to a head and the couple sat down and talked about the toll that wage imbalance was taking on Alan’s self-esteem. “She helped me gain perspective. There are so many more important things to worry about in life than who makes more money.”

Wage inequity weighs heavily on wives, too. Alyson Byrne and Julian Barling investigated the toll it takes on relationships in their study published in Organization Science. “You have to imagine that a lot of these women, particularly in senior executive or high-status roles, are very smart and very ambitious. We know from management studies that they’ve had to work that much harder and face that many more barriers,” says Dr. Byrne.

Byrne and Barling studied 200 high-achieving businesswomen in Canada in relationships where 44 per cent of husbands made less than they did. Many wives reported a personal loss of status when responding to statements such as “My spouse’s job impedes my future career success;” “I am embarrassed when my spouse accompanies me to work events;” “My spouse’s work makes me look bad.”

This “status leakage” manifested itself in marital dissatisfaction and instability. However, stress was reduced in relationships where the husband was willing to provide an increased roll in child care and household chores.

Frank discussions between partners are critical in reducing martial stress. Men need to lay their own insecurities bare. “The whole time,” said Alan, “I thought I was doing a pretty good job of hiding my feelings, but it turns out she knew and was internalizing my resentment into guilt. That about broke my heart.”

Left to fester, wage disparity can be toxic unless dealt with openly. Unemployed men become confused about their role. They become more violent and controlling. Drug and alcohol abuse increase; so do suicide rates.

Wives need to be frank, as well. Dr. Byrne found that wives are not angry or disgusted, but that they feel a sense of loss. “They are just feeling loss or wishing that they [husbands] were at a similar level to their own, but it creates these long-term impacts on their marriages.”


I was going to write a column about Omar Khadr’s award of $10.5 million by the Canadian government but I don’t have much more to say than I did in my column, nine years ago, in the Kamloops Daily News.


Unmasking Uber and Facebook

Let’s stop pretending that Uber is just along for the ride in the gig economy and that Facebook is just a technology company.


At first glance, the gig economy seems great: a way for individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit to improve themselves. The reality is that it’s a race to the bottom. For many workers, it’s all they have. They string together a number of insecure, low paying, temporary jobs to try to keep the wolf from the door.

Mortgage companies are reluctant to lend to those without secure work. Gig workers have trouble saving for retirement; they have no sick or maternity leave; no health care plans. Workers are easily abused because of the one-to-one relationship with employers.

It’s easy to become complacent if you have a reliable income. Someone like me, for example. On my visit Los Angeles last year I used Uber. I marveled at the technology that allowed me watch the car’s progress from blocks away on my tablet. I was impressed by the courteous driver and his new, clean car and the low fare.

But those of us with reliable incomes should worry as full-time positions are eroded by the gig economy.

Uber professes to be just an app that connects drivers with passengers; a dubious claim says Carl Mortished:

“That was Uber’s wizard scheme: to make money from millions of taxi journeys without actually employing a single driver or even being part of the transaction. It was about making money from the gig economy without doing a single gig (Globe and Mail, November 4, 2016).”

Judges in England found Uber’s claim that it was not an employer to be unbelievable. Drivers have no control over choice of customers, fares, and routes traveled. They are subject to a rating system that amounts to a disciplinary procedure. Judges ruled that drivers were entitled to minimum wages and paid holidays.

Facebook harbors its own pretensions. At an event in Rome last year, an audience member asked founder Mark Zuckerberg if Facebook was an “editor in the media?” He replied that Facebook does not produce content but merely “exists to give the tools to give you the tools to curate and have the experience to connect to the world that you want.” Mortished disagrees:

“What Mr. Zuckerberg says is untrue. Facebook is editing and making content. Facebook is paying millions of dollars to celebrities and other media organizations to make videos for Facebook Live.”

Facebook edits its website: banning, deleting and restricting content that doesn’t fit their rules. They ran into a storm of protest when editors deleted the famous Vietnam War photo of naked girl fleeing an American napalm attack.

Facebook should grow up. It’s no longer the college photo-sharing web site it once was. Facebook would prefer not to be classified as a publisher because it would find itself in the messy business of being responsible for content that might be offensive, defamatory, or potentially criminal.

I’m not against Uber. Properly implemented, it could improve taxi service and provide fair working conditions for drivers. I like Facebook. It keeps me in touch with friends and family. But let’s avoid the charade, Mr. Zuckerberg, of the exact nature of the business that you’re in.

Conservatives can increase chances by decreasing happiness

The antics of some Conservative leadership hopefuls are pathetic. Chris Alexander at a rally bobs his head in rhythm to the chants “lock her up” in reference to Premier Rachel Notley, tone deaf to the toxic implications; Kellie Leitch calls for immigrants to be tested for “Canadian Values” even though no such test exists and if it did, she would probably fail.

Huffington Post

Huffington Post

Trump-style populism into will not succeed because Canadians are not ripe for such politics –we need more inequality and the resultant unhappiness for this approach to work.

Inequality creates a sense of injustice and anger that manifests itself in a variety of ways. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nattavudh Powdthavee researched the effects of inequality for the Harvard Business Review (January, 2016). They found that anger and stress increased in countries where the richest 1 per cent controlled the greatest share of wealth.

“In societies where the richest hold most of the country’s income, people were more likely to report feeling ‘stressed,’ ‘worried,’ or ‘angry’ on the day before the survey.”

Angry politicians appeal to angry voters. Trump’s anger is what propelled him into power; that’s why his racist and misogynistic views were largely overlooked. He was as mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it any more.

It’s not just anger that is affected. As anger went up, life satisfaction went down.

“We examined data from the Gallup World Poll and the World Top Incomes Database and found that the more income is concentrated in the hands of a few, the more likely individuals are to report lower levels of life satisfaction and more negative daily emotional experiences.”

Life satisfaction exacerbates unemployment. For every 1 per cent increase in the share of income of the top 1 per cent, unemployment rises by 1.4 per cent. There are a couple of factors involved –exporting jobs to areas of cheap labour increases profits; unhappy workers tend to be less productive, take longer sick leaves, and quit their jobs.

At the other end of the scale, greater wealth also creates unhappiness. Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton calculated that day-to-day happiness peaks at an income of $75,000 a year, after which it plateaus. Inequality creates unhappiness at both ends of the wealth spectrum.

Canada is the sixth most happy country in the world according to the World Happiness Report behind the Scandinavian countries but ahead of the U.S. at thirteenth. Can you guess how these counties rank in equality? Right, the Scandinavian countries are the most equal followed by Canada and then the U.S.

Inequality is rising fastest in the U.S. where the top 1 per cent increased their wealth from 8 per cent of total wealth to 19 per cent in just thirty years (Scientific American, September, 2016).

Equality and satisfaction of life can be increased, and anger reduced, through fair taxes and benefits to the poor: like minimum wages, child care, job security, employment insurance, and an affordable education.

Conservative leadership hopefuls can increase their chances by increasing inequality and decreasing the happiness of Canadians by lowering taxes, increasing tuition, resisting wage hikes, and reducing job security.