Lambton Kent Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton is disappointed in yesterday’s passing of the Ontario government’s labour reform bill. 
McNaughton but admits he does approve of the increase of paid holiday time to three weeks, but says the minimum wage hike to $15 by 2019 is too fast.
“It’s certainly going to be $14 an hour on January first, but we’ve laid out a different timeline than the Liberals and NDP,” the Conservative member says. “We would slow down the implementation from $14-15, and we would do that over a four-year period.”
The bill also gives a minimum of 10 days of personal emergency leave, including at least two paid days to all workers, and forces employers to pay part-time, temporary, and casual workers at the same rate as full-time staff doing the same job.
Gail Hundt, president of the Chatham-Kent Chamber of Commerce, says while the minimum wage hike isn’t a bad decision, the timing is poor.
“Putting this, so quickly, on the backs of small business is going to have repercussions,” Hundt says. “Unfortunately, we’re already witnessing it here in Chatham-Kent, within the last two weeks there have been notification of small businesses shutting down, amalgamating, making changes because not only is it the minimum wage, but it’s the increase of personal days that they have not been subjected to in the past.”
Hundt says the wage increase comes with an increase for CPP and EI premiums, which hit small business owners hard.
