Manitoba's minimum wage will rise to $15 per hour by October 2023
CBC
Minimum wage earners in Manitoba will make just over $3 per hour more than they currently do by the fall of 2023, when the hourly rate goes up to $15, the province says.
Premier Heather Stefanson announced the phased-in approach to raising the minimum wage Thursday, saying Manitoba has fallen behind other jurisdictions.
"We know that to attract and retain new workers and immigrants in Manitoba, wages need to be competitive with other provinces," she said at a news conference on Thursday.
The lowest wage in Manitoba is currently $11.95 an hour. Under the province's existing formula of indexing wage hikes to inflation, that was slated to rise to $12.35 by Oct. 1.
That would have become the lowest minimum wage in the country, with Saskatchewan set to boost its minimum wage in October to $13 an hour.
But the province now says following consultations with the labour and business communities, minimum wage will increase to $13.50 this Oct. 1.
Manitoba's minimum wage will then be the second-lowest in the country, ahead only of Saskatchewan.
New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia all currently have minimum wages below $13.50, but all are set to rise past that mark on Oct. 1, according to the Retail Council of Canada.
On April 1, 2023, Manitoba's lowest wage will go up an additional 65 cents, to $14.15 per hour.
With the expected consumer price index increase for 2022, the indexed adjustment following that will bring Manitoba's minimum wage to around $15 for Oct. 1, 2023, Stefanson says.
This announcement comes after the Progressive Conservative government asked the labour management review committee — a group made up of both labour and business representatives — to recommend a new minimum wage, but they couldn't reach an agreement.
The business representatives wanted a wage in the range of $13 to $14 an hour, while labour advocated for $16.15, which they described as a living wage in Manitoba as determined by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
"Labour is always going to be on one side and management is going to be on the other," Stefanson said Thursday. The hikes she announced are "a fair and balanced approach to getting to where we think is a competitive place across the country," she said.
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