If a business owner can’t afford upcoming minimum-wage increases, they need to re-evaluate their operating model, Barrie MPP Ann Hoggarth said.

The Liberal MPP made the comment during a news conference with Ontario Labour Minister Kevin Flynn at Barrie’s Community Wholeness Centre Dec. 7. Flynn was in the city touting the recently approved Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act.

“If you’re going to go out of business on the backs of your employees because you can’t afford to pay them this, perhaps you should reassess your business plan and whether you should be an employer,” Hoggarth said. “This is the right thing to do.”

This legislation includes increases to the general minimum wage to $14 per hour on Jan. 1, $15 in January 2019 and annual bumps to match the rate of inflation after that.

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It also mandates a number of other changes to labour practices in the province, including: equal pay for part-time, temporary, casual and seasonal workers doing the same job as full-time employees; an expansion of personal emergency leave to 10 days per calendar year; and a ban on employers requiring a physician’s sick note. Employees will also get at least three weeks of vacation after five years of working for the same employer.

“Our new legislation addresses the needs of the modern workplace and provides a minimum wage workers can actually live on,” Flynn said.

Hoggarth also addressed the social media uproar over a Barrie butcher, Lawrence Vindum, who said he was forced out of business due to electricity cost increases, and the anticipated effect of the minimum wage hike.

“The gentleman was one of the nominees running for the PCs,” she said. “You don’t see other butchers closing. You have to consider the source.”

Vindum admits he is a member of the Progressive Conservative party who ran for the nomination in the Barrie-Innisfil riding.

“But I’m not targeting Wynne because of my conservative leanings,” he told Simcoe.com recently. “The economy has just been getting whittled down for small businesses for years now.”