the minimum wage in canada is set by provincial legislation and is province specific. i think there was a federal minimum wage in the past, but it fell out of disuse quite a long time ago, and there are actually good reasons for this: if a federal minimum wage were set to reflect the cost-of-living in the most populous province of ontario, you'd end up with starvation wages in more expensive provinces like alberta, where a living wage would be upwards of $40/hr. it's a big, diverse country. this is a policy that should be localized.

i would actually even support legislating it at the municipal level, but we'd have to change the constitution to do that.

i don't work, but i believe that ontario's minimum wage was frozen at $14/hr by the ford government when it took over last year, which cancelled a planned raise to $15/hr. this was put into place by the previous liberal government of kathleen wynne, which was by far the most left-wing government in the entire country, and the most left-wing government the country has seen in a very long time. they made some unnecessary cuts to services at the municipal level, but i was broadly supportive of the wynne-mcguinty government.

it follows that mulcair would really not have had the jurisdictional power to set or raise the minimum wage, and would have faced a strong backlash from the provinces had he tried. yet, the truth is that he didn't actually propose doing that. there was a big media hoopla in canada in the previous election about mulcair's promise of a minimum wage for federal workers being "misleading" or "dishonest", but i never found that he was confusing, himself. rather, the media misunderstood him, and then blamed it on him. but, let's be clear on what his proposal was: his proposal was to ensure that federal workers - unionized government workers - would get a "minimum wage" of $15/hr. this might have affected some part time students, at most. but, i would not consider such a proposal to be very substantive.

i've been vocal in my support for higher wages for workers, and any suggestion to the contrary is a bold-faced lie. the ndp are good at that....