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How?  How is it possible that Kathleen Wynne was able to flip the script yet again and turn herself overnight from a toxically unpopular Premier into the champion of hard-done by, ruthlessly exploited Tim Horton's employees?  What political wizardry is this?  Did someone in the Premier's Office just flip a switch and activate a whole army of Liberal social media partisans that were lying dormant?

Well….yeah.

The suddenness with which this tempest in a Tim Horton's coffee pot dominated the previously barren political landscape in Ontario is suspicious to say the least.  For months, the discourse was dominated by dry, inside baseball talk of trials and complaints over nominations.

Well, except for a slight blip in the social media landscape before the calendar rolled over, where Liberal MPP Ann Hoggarth told business owners that they were effectively bad business owners who shouldn't be in business if they couldn't handle an increase in the minimum wage.  A seeming gaffe, in the depths of December when many Canadians were getting ready for vacation…..

But then the story of the greedy Timmies' heirs cutting their employees' breaks broke, and Wynne's populist tweet calling those founders out followed suspiciously soon after.  Then came the support from reliably Liberal writers like Bruce Anderson and Michael Coren, and the #15andfairness and #boycotttimhortons and #notimmiestuesday hashtags helpfully provided by members of Canada's labour community.

The efficiency of this process provides a strong case for re-imagining Hoggarth's small business smackdown as a trial balloon for how the current minimum wage war would play itself out.

The NDP was caught completely flat footed by all of the above, despite billing themselves as champions of the minimum wage and having enough of a presence in the labour movement that you would expect that they would have seen this coming.

While Andrea Horwath was photographed standing in solidarity with striking employees in good time, it's clear that she doesn't have a tight enough lock on the unions- raising the possibility of a repeat of the 2014 campaign, where they deserted her for the Liberals.

The PC's and their affiliates fared slightly better, with articles quickly slapped together reminding people that, yeah, sorry, in a free market when wages go up profits go down, or that Wynne went ahead with the increase despite not testing the impact with a study first, or that august institutions such as the Bank of Canada predicted 60,000 job losses as a result of higher wages, or even the fact that Wynne recently appointed the CEO of Tim Horton's to the board of Hydro One.

But none of this could change the fact that Wynne and the Liberals were first off the mark with their lightning quick strike, and that they withdrew quickly from the debate as the PC's scrambled to keep up and fire back.

The right knew it, too, even though it would kill them to admit it.  You could find assorted grumblings about the Premier being in "attack mode" or accusing her of "phony populism"- which is exactly the sort of things that Patrick Brown could not do, lest he be accused of "Trump-style politics."

Not that Patrick Brown would touch this issue with a stale Timbit, mind you.  The risk-averse PCs are so convinced that a single misspoken word from their leader would cost them the election that their leader hasn't uttered a peep which, in and of itself, speaks to how much power and control the supposedly near-dead Liberals still exert.  All we got was a tweet by spokesperson Dan Robertson, retweeted by Brown, which "clarifies" that the PC's support a $15/hour minimum wage, just… more slowly.

How the PC's plan to steer Patrick Brown away from difficult scrapes like this one in the middle of the writ is something they have yet to clarify.

What the PC's should be learning here is that the Liberals can kickstart their machinery whenever and wherever they choose.  And if they are not convinced of the power of the Liberal Re-Election System, consider that this isn't the first time an organized boycott of Tim Hortons was attempted.  Remember how various forces associated with the right in this country targeted the franchise after they bowed to pressure and pulled ads from Enbridge?

I have no evidence of whether this latest attempt to boycott Tim's is a deliberate example of the recent annoying trend of "borrowing from the opponent's playbook".

But even if it wasn't, it shows that the Conservatives may need a shot or two of espresso if they want to match the Liberal pace during the election.

Photo Credit: Inside Timmies

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Ontario's minimum wage rose to $14 an hour on New Year's Day.  By next year, it should reach $15 an hour and then rise annually with inflation.  That, of course, is depending on the Ontario Liberal government being re-elected and keeping their word.  If they lose, another government could cancel the increase or even improve it.  Who knows?

By increasing the minimum wage, Kathleen Wynne has made Ontario the Canadian jurisdiction with the highest minimum wage.  For a few months, it was Alberta that had the honour, the NDP government having increased the minimum wage to $13.60 on October 1, 2017.  The Alberta government will raise the minimum wage again to $15 per hour on October 1, 2018.  Nunavut is in third place at $13 an hour.  It trickles down from there all the way to $10.85 an hour for a minimum wage worker in Nova Scotia.

British Columbia should become the third Canadian province to hike its minimum wage to $15 an hour.  The BC NDP campaigned on bringing in a $15 an hour minimum wage by 2021, it has been $11.35 since September 2017.  The new NDP government has pulled the plug on the 2021 deadline, though.  BC Labour Minister Harry Bains says the BC government remains committed to the $15 target, but had to "compromise" with other parties on the deadline.  In other words, the government's Green party allies have forced BC to slow down.

That's for people working under provincial jurisdiction, including most classic low-wage industries such as restaurant, retail and other small businesses.

But what about workers from labour market sectors coming under federal authority, such as international and interprovincial transportation, banking, telecommunication (including radio and television broadcasting), crown corporations, etc.?  The current minimum wage rate applicable in regard to them is the regular minimum rate of the province or territory where the employee is usually employed.

It is often argued that this makes sense because the cost-of-living and other factors vary greatly from province to province.  What employers can and will pay for workers in British-Columbia is sometimes much more than for a similar employee in PEI.  The same can be said from city to city, I suppose.  Yet, it is not always the case.  For instance, minimum wage in Ottawa is now $14 an hour.  Cross the bridge to Gatineau, and you are at $11.25.  Considering how intertwined the economy of the National Capital Region is, how does that make any sense?

The truth is that the minimum wage increases in Ontario and Alberta are putting pressure on the other provinces to follow suit.  BC will join the $15 bandwagon eventually.  A distinct, separate and generous federal minimum wage would create even more pressure on provincial governments to raise theirs by bringing up over 125,000 federally regulated workers to $15 an hour.

And pressure is needed.  Because despite that caused by Alberta and Ontario, the Quebec government just closed the door on the minimum wage at $15 an hour.  This will no doubt be an election issue, since over 220 000 Quebecers are minimum wage workers.  For now though, the Quebec Liberals will stick to a progressive increase to the minimum wage.  Last year, the Quebec government raised it by $0.50.  A similar increase is expected again this year.  By 2020, it will reach $12.45, according to Quebec's projections.

For many progressives, a $15 minimum wage has become an important symbol in the inequality debate.  People are working longer, job security is obsolete, casual work is on the rise, pensions and benefits are harder to come by.

When Tom Mulcair's NDP came up with a proposal to give a raise to the lowest paid of the federally regulated industries, Justin Trudeau's Liberals argued and fought against it during the 2015 election despite having voted for the very idea in the House of Commons the year before.  So much for out-lefting the NDP!

While it is true that most jobs regulated by the federal government pay more than $15 per hour as it stands now, there is no reason not to improve the working conditions of those who don't.  And it's a little awkward for Trudeau to keep saying no when his Liberal friends at Queen's Park have suddenly embraced the idea.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.