How many weeks must a Pete’s Frootique worker work to earn what its parent company pays its CEO for just one hour?

Pete’s Frootique workers on the picket line in front of the grocery store in Halifax. Sobeys-owned Pete’s Frootique offered its workers a wage increase below even what will be the provincial minimum wage in April. And then refused to budge until a sure-to-be-embarrassing National Day of Protest shamed it into settling. Is this the best […]

What we could do for the price of John Risley’s yacht

Quick now. How many Nova Scotians — earning Canada’s average industrial wage of $58,800 a year — could be hired for one full year for the reported asking price of John Risley’s one new, never-even sailed US$350-million luxury yacht? Don’t even bother with the currency conversion. If you guessed 5,992 with a little left over […]

Latest apology accepted, Tim Houston. Now…

If Premier Houston really has “the greatest respect for the workers of NS, especially those making minimum wage,” he will make sure our minimum wage is also a living wage. Why are we always talking about yet another “yesterday” issue long after that train should have jumped the tracks? Consider the living wage… er, the […]

Hold on to your ballots

Tax cuts for businesses, increases for minimum-wage earners, cute photos with kids… There must be an election coming. Let us count up just a few of the reasons Premier Stephen McNeil will call a provincial election before the end of 2020. Start in the counting house itself. Last week, during his annual State of the […]

Is that any way to start a discussion?

The United Way’s report on what it takes to live in Halifax, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s knee-jerk response to the report and the need for an open, honest debate… So what’s the difference between minimum wage and a living wage? In Halifax, about $10 an hour. That was the recent surprise-but-no-surprise conclusion […]

When the United Way stated the obvious, the CFIB hit the fan

Really? Last week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a progressive think tank, published a meticulously detailed, 62-page, 72-footnote report commissioned by Halifax’s United Way. Its purpose: to determine how much it takes for someone in Halifax to be “Working for a Living, Not Living to Work.” Which is when the small business hit the […]