By Ross Ayotte
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Let's start with the $2.40 increase in minimum wage Premier Wynne imposed on small businesses in Ontario starting Jan. 1 and another one dollar increase the following year which is a 29% increase and expect the owners to keep their businesses operating as normal then add in more paid vacations and sick leave to boot.
This will add $243,889 a year more just to Tim Horton's operating costs per franchise according to the Great White North Franchise Association which represents half of the 4,584 outlets in Canada. The Tim Horton's company itself only operates 29 of these outlets. What does liberal MPP Ann Hoggarth have to say? "If you cant' afford to pay this perhaps you should reassess your business plan."
When a few Tim Horton outlets said they must cancel some of the perks to stay competitive and in business Premier Wynne states they are just greedy owners and now a few Tim Horton outlets have raised their prices on their breakfast menu so our unionized government workers are out protesting at Tim Horton's across Ontario in support of Premier Wynne.
It's funny how this works. Premier Wynne has paid to negotiate the teacher unions costs to negotiate their contracts then has given the unions more than they ask for at the bargaining table to keep the union vote. So now the unions are coming to her defence to keep the liberals in power.
How would these union members act if Premier Wynne took a large cut out of their salary like they did to small business owners which would never happen as Premier Wynne knows who keeps her in office?
If a minimum wage worker works a 40 hour week they will earn $6,968.26 more a year so who really benefits from this wage increase as prices will rise on everything we buy in Ontario? Secondly, this increase will put the workers in a higher tax bracket which means the government will bring in more tax revenue due to higher income tax the workers pay and the HST revenue collected by the government will also increase. So, in my opinion, this is just a Liberal tax grab to distract the people of Ontario from the Liberals disastrous record on governing Ontario.
To be fair it is not just Tim Horton's who will be raising prices or cutting hours or laying off staff to stay in business. This is about raising tax revenue to pay for Premier Wynne's free election promises.
If Premier Wynne really cared about the people of Ontario why did she not just increase the amount of money the people could earn before paying taxes and stop wasting billions and billions of taxpayers money? This large increase in minimum wage could have been minimized. Cancel the Liberal failed green energy experiment and quit inventing new taxes and fees and raising existing taxes and fees to put more money back in peoples pockets.
The experts are now saying up to ninety thousand jobs could be lost due to this huge increase across Ontario and this may speed up businesses being more automated.
Ross Ayotte Smiths Falls Ont 613 283-8244
