Economy relies on poverty

Re Double double, brand in trouble: Tim’s losing Main Street cred, Wells, Jan. 6 It’s sad that so many Canadian business models are based on workers living in poverty. For years, the Holy Grail of businesses has been low prices. Therefore, workers’ compensation has been a race to the bottom.

Large, wealthy corporations have closed stores if workers organize in an attempt to get a living wage. Businesses have brought in foreign workers to keep wages low. Many companies employ part-time workers to avoid paying benefits, and the constant threat of cutting their hours keeps any upstarts in line. As a result, Canada has a poverty-based economy in many sectors.

How is it that other countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, can pay their workers a living wage and still have robust economies?

We should stop griping and start paying workers a fair wage. If that means the rest of us have to pay a few cents more for the goods and services they produce, so be it. In the long run, all Canadians will benefit. Steen Petersen, Nanaimo, B.C. Re Wage hike could cost 60,000 jobs, bank says, Jan. 4 It is one thing to construct policy that moves toward the provision of equal opportunity but quite another if people feel they are being penalized to improve opportunities for others.

For example, yesterday I bought an ice cream cone for $2.80, an increase of 27 per cent from the $2.20 that I paid last week. The explanation was that the change in price was due to an increase in the minimum wage (from $11.60 to $14, or 21 per cent).

With the increase in the minimum wage falling on all workers and consumers, businesses will profit from an increase in the price of goods and services — a move that is inequitable and politically unwise.

To address the culture of poverty, the provincial government should have stipulated that businesses must share those profits with the working poor. Diane Meaghan, Thornhill