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With bills stretching paycheques to the limit, Québec Solidaire is pitching a $20 minimum wage to help bring relief to low-income workers.
But Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) Leader Christine Fréchette contended that hiking the rate too quickly would have a detrimental ripple effect.
“It would be a big blow, because in fact, when you modify the minimum wage, it’s certain that the entire wage scale is affected by it,” Fréchette told Radio-Canada host Anne-Marie Dussault on Wednesday evening, adding that a jump of that scale would “hurt the economy too much.”
But does economic data actually support that claim?
Eve-Lyne Couturier, a researcher with the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques (IRIS), said the concerns raised by the CAQ leader are unfounded.
“Every year you have business representatives come out and say, ‘this is too much,’” she said in an interview.
“What we see in reality is that the dramatic effects do not happen.”
In a 2023 IRIS study examining wage dynamics and inflation, Couturier and co-author Raphaël Langevin found no evidence that raising wages for low earners triggers inflationary wage-price spirals or economic instability.
At $16.60 an hour, Quebec currently ranks fifth highest among Canadian provinces.
When accounting for the federal minimum wage and the Northwest Territories, Quebec falls to ninth place overall.
Québec Solidaire says if elected, it would raise the province’s minimum wage from its current $16.60 to $20. CAQ Leader Christine Fréchette argued the proposal would damage the economy and affect the entire wage scale, but some researchers say otherwise.
According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, 137,100 people — about three per cent of the province’s salaried workforce — earn the exact statutory minimum wage floor.
But raising the baseline to $20 an hour would have a broader impact, delivering a direct pay increase to an estimated 250,000 to 260,000 Quebecers currently earning between $16.60 and $20.
Pierre-Antoine Harvey, an assistant professor of industrial relations at the Université de Montréal, acknowledged making the minimum wage $20 in a single year would be a “big jump.”
Still, he said empirical research suggests it wouldn’t lead to any upheaval. Harvey said some studies show minimum wage increases drive up the wages of those earning slightly more than the minimum.
“It’s hard to find a direct link between a big minimum wage increase and a loss of jobs,” Harvey said. “It’s an exaggeration that we hear.”
When asked about the criticism of the proposal on Radio-Canada, Québec Solidaire’s co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal said that people should “be able to live in dignity.”
She noted that her party’s proposal includes $330 million to help businesses deal with the sudden wage increase.
“For me, the deal is simple. When you work, you’re supposed to be able to pay the bills and not fall into poverty,” she said.
