There’s a giant loophole in Notley’s argument

That one solitary word, uttered by our premier, succinctly embodies this current government’s basic, core belief that employers are cunning, greedy, untrustworthy people.

The word emanating from Rachel Notley’s lips was “loophole” — describing her views about the future actions of bosses if the government allows younger workers to be exempted from the somewhat onerous minimum wage strictures her government put in place across Alberta.

She was responding to the suggestion that perhaps the current $15-an-hour benchmark could be lowered in certain circumstances, such as teenage workers or restaurant servers as a few other jurisdictions in Canada have allowed.

The idea, though not an original one in this country, was put forward by Jason Kenney, her opponent in the rapidly approaching provincial election.

The UCP head honcho was himself responding to the expressed woes of the province’s restaurant owners — many of them self-employed, one-location, business people — who are being hammered by a gamut of government-mandated staff wage hikes, higher rates, carbon taxes, along with a general slowdown in customer spending.

As we are already in unofficial campaign mode, it isn’t surprising that Notley would disparage anything coming from the Kenney corner, but the language used in doing exactly that points to a deeper philosophical position that has marked the NDP’s four years in office here in Alberta.

Speaking to the Calgary Rotary club last week, she said many gleeful restaurant bosses would immediately jump on any lowering of the minimum wage for those serving in their respective outlets.

“That is, quite frankly, a massive, massive loophole through which we can expect many employers to drop through at the expense of workers,” she said.

“Quite honestly, it should come as no surprise that roughly two-thirds of those workers who will lose out through this policy announcement made today are women.”

Oh, so not only are these small business folk greedy and heartless, they are misogynistic as well, having in their sights the unfortunate downtrodden single mom they are merrily taking advantage of as though Alberta had morphed into some modern-day Dickensian landscape, complete with workhouses and daily gruel servings for those less fortunate.

In fact, the premier can’t even go out for groceries these days without being swarmed by young folk gushing how she’s salvaged their very futures.

“I have personally lost count of the number of times I’ve had young people approach me in stores or restaurants and tell me, just organically, how the change in the minimum wage means that they can continue their studies at school,” is how she explained it.

But then maybe the premier doesn’t meet the huge number of youngsters currently unemployed in Alberta. They likely don’t eat out much and rely on parents to grocery shop.

Calgary small business owners are hurting big time, clobbered from all sides by various levels of government with their endless blather about how some fee or tax is only going up by the cost of a cup of coffee so it won’t hurt a bit.

They are not out to cheat or shortchange their staff. They are simply trying to survive and hope the economic dark clouds lift. But to this government, they remain an untrustworthy bunch of capitalistic bottom-feeders hoping to feast at the expense of their poor staff.

Of course, in real life, not in Notleyland, many small businesses are going to the wall. And when that happens what does our premier imagine happens to the staff ?

Maybe they can find a government job. After all, when you borrow $7 billion a year you can keep filling the public service payrolls.

This is Economics 101 for the NDP. All bosses look for loopholes and only the government can be trusted.

That we are going down a hellhole of debt that eventually will bankrupt the province is a can to be kicked down the road. Or maybe Notley thinks that’s just another loophole.

Unfortunately for Alberta, the only loop is around our economic necks.