An open letter to Surrey council.
Re: City of Surrey examines fair-wage policy, April 1.
On behalf of the Surrey, White Rock and Langley chapter of the Council of Canadians, I’d like to applaud you for your approval to explore the idea of a fair-wage policy for all Surrey contracts.
Statistics Canada has placed the poverty line for a single person living in a major city in 2007 at $21,666 before tax. That works out to about $10.80 per hour.
I don’t think contractors to Surrey municipality should be paying wages that are at or even close to the poverty line.
A living wage should be $18.81 an hour in Vancouver (“Working for a Living Wage”, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives).
We live in the age of the working poor, where too many are working full time and do not earn enough money for the basics to raise their families.
People working full time should not be forced to rely on food banks.
Other governments have already adopted a fair-wage policy: federal, Province of Ontario, Burnaby, New Westminster, and five Ontario municipalities, including Toronto.
Our chapter looks forward to the fair-wage policy implementation in Surrey.
Phil Harrison, Surrey
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Re: Minimum wage increase overdue, March 25 editorial.
I agree with your editorial that the minimum wage has been much too low. As a matter of fact, I think the increases are not nearly enough.
Since the last that the minimum wage was increased, the cost of living has at least doubled and, of course, housing has even tripled.
So the minimum wage should not be increased by only a couple of dollars, but doubled. Let’s move it to $20 – a nice round figure and still less than $40,000 per year.
This will greatly increase spending for our economy. Also students working at part-time jobs will make enough money so that they will be able to pay for their education and not have to borrow the money from their parents or the government. The days of students graduating with a monstrous student loan to pay back will be gone.
And the training wage was a travesty. Why should you pay kids who are still in high school a lower wage than others? They deserve to make money.
In future, the minimum wage should be set by union leaders such as the those in the teachers union or the BC Federation of Labour. These people specialize in wages and have always had the poor in mind when advocating higher wages.
And for those in industry saying the increases I propose are going to put people out of work; they always say that and it never happens.
John Bootsma, White Rock
