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In any case, there are other policies that have far more credibility in helping low-income workers get ahead. But there’s an election in Ontario this year, and the Liberals are behind in the polls. So, there is no time to waste on evidence-based policies with more subtlety than this sledgehammer to business owners. Especially for politicians trying to save their careers by spending someone else’s money.

There's an election in Ontario this year, and the Liberals are behind in the polls

And that’s literally what a boost to the minimum wage is. Even the policy’s most ardent supporters don’t deny that it results in a wealth transfer — indeed, that’s the point. The only question is who ends up covering the cost.

And that brings us to Tim Hortons. Most Tim Hortons outlets are franchises: they are owned and operated by individuals who agreed to adhere to a series of company-wide standards enforced by head office. The standards, in the case of Tim Hortons, include branding, logos, decor, menu and, crucially, price. Headquarters periodically raises the price of its menu items, say, to react to commodity-driven spikes (if the market rate for coffee beans goes up, you’ll pay for it) or to keep up with inflation. But Tim Hortons storeowners have no control over that.

Yet it’s the franchise owners in Ontario who are now covering the increased labour costs triggered by the minimum wage. And not just those. As Restaurants Canada president and CEO Shanna Munro noted in our Financial Post comment pages this week, the minimum wage hikes make up just a portion of the new costs triggered by a raft of new labour rules that took effect along with the higher minimum wage. While the higher wages account for 58 per cent of the costs of the Ontario Liberals’ Bill 148, Restaurants Canada estimates that another 42 per cent are expenses created by all the other new workplace regulations.