The Wynne Liberals are going around the province this week accepting input on increasing the minimum wage.
It was the end of May Premier Wynne announced plans to hike the wage to $15 an hour in less than 18 months which represents a 32 per cent increase.
Business owners warned of job losses and closing up shop.
They're wondering why feedback is being collected now when it should have been done before any decision was made.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business calls it completely backwards and shameful. "To not even have the decency, the courtesy, to ask businesses 'can you afford this?' This is a slap in the face to businesses and I'm telling you our businesses are angry," says Julie Kwiecinski with the CFIB. "They are telling me that this government doesn't care about them. They are creating the jobs and this government doesn't even care about them. It's very sad!"
The province just completed a two-year review of potential changes to employment standards and labour relations laws and Kwiecinski says discussion about the minimum wage was off the table. "I'm sure you can appreciate that when this was announced at the end of May our members were blindsided, shocked, appalled, and crestfallen that the government would even consider this when they just went through a two-year exercise where this was expressly excluded."
Kwiecinski reminds everyone the province announced the minimum wage hike without completing any form of economic impact analysis. "That is bad policy. We're talking about sound bite policy, here, and that's about it because it's bad policy."