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CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. —

Island NDP Leader Joe Byrne believes the entire province would benefit if the working poor were earning more money.

Byrne announced Friday a commitment, if his party were elected to govern, to raise minimum wage in the province to $15 per hour within a four-year term in what he termed his first major announcement a few days into the provincial election campaign.

P.E.I.'s minimum wage rises from $11.55 to $12.25 an hour on Monday, April 1, and is currently the highest in Atlantic Canada.

Not nearly high enough in Byrne’s estimation.

“We’ve seen cost of living rise significantly and we’ve seen significant issues in rent going up,’’ he said.

“We have all seen the cost of food go up, and it is only fair that wages rise as well.’’

NDP leader Joe Byrne talks with Simone Webster, NDP candidate for District 13 in the P.E.I. election campaign. Byrne pledged to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour within a four-year term if elected.

He noted more than 38 per cent of the Island’s workforce – nearly 24,000 workers – are classified as the working poor.

He said the social assistance system, the health system and the justice system all pay a high cost for the widespread poverty in the province.

“The worst and the highest cost of this,’’ he added, “is the human toll that it takes.

“We’re asking people to live without the hope and dignity that everybody is entitled to, that everybody should live with in our economy, in our society, in our community.’’

Byrne said the NDP is also committed to the introduction of a five-year pilot project on basic income.

He noted all three parties in the legislature provided unanimous support for a motion urging the province to partner with the federal government to develop a basic income pilot project for P.E.I. Nothing has come of this to date.

He said Islanders should be appalled that the province has the lowest average weekly earnings in the country.

“The income gap that we talk about across the country exists here on P.E.I., too, where some people do really, really well but so many don’t,’’ he said.

“We have to address those things, otherwise we don’t have an economy that works.’’

When asked what his broader economic policy is to attract more business, grow jobs and improve the economy in P.E.I., he again leaned on his call to increase wages of the working poor.

“The backbone of our economy is small business,’’ said Byrne.

“The owners – the entrepreneurs – that are developing these businesses, they need a market. They have to sell whatever good and service that they have to a market. And the market when people are poor is small.’’