The President of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce isn't worried about the local business community when it comes to an increase to the minimum wage.
The Ontario government has announced the minimum wage will increase from the current $11.40 an hour to $15 an hour by 2019.
Matt Marchand says a $15 an hour wage could be tough for some small businesses, but he's confident most will be able to handle it.
Marchand is looking forward to hearing the finer details of the plan. "We've got a great business community and we're one of the leaders in the living wage program. So we have to make sure that Windsor-Essex is the place to do business and we have a very generous business community, as I said, so we look forward to sharing our views with the province over the summer and we'll see what the legislation looks like in the fall."
The Living Wage campaign, launched in 2015, calls on employers from all sectors to pay wages that are sufficient to provide for basic needs of families. The local push to provide a living was spearheaded by Pathway to Potential, which indicated the living wage rate for Windsor-Essex was $14.15 an hour as of March 2015.
"The move will also help to further build on the living wage campaign," says Marchand. "We've been involved in the living wage campaign, one of the first chambers to do that in Canada. So we're really proud of our membership. A lot of our members have actually supported that and have participated as best as they can. So we think we're in a good spot in our position."