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Braden Sapara, a volunteer at the event, said he has worked a number of low wage jobs in the past and understands how hard it can be to get by.

“It’s exceedingly difficult to make any progress in life if you can’t have the means to do so, so we want to make sure that people are able to make changes in their lives,” he said.

“When you lift up the bottom rung of the ladder, the entire ladder moves.”

Photo by TROY FLEECE / Regina Leader-Post

Don Morgan, Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, said the provincial government is not currently considering upping Saskatchewan’s minimum wage.

“The Bank of Canada has indicated that if we did an immediate increase to $15 an hour it could have across Canada a detrimental effect to 60,000 jobs,” he said.

“We made the commitment when we amended our legislation to index our minimum wage so it’s predictable, it’s transparent. It’s the average between consumer price index and the average hourly wage, and that’s where we’re at and we think it’s a good place to be.”

Morgan also said the government has found ways to take 112,000 people in the province off the tax rolls, giving them more of their income in take-home pay. Now that number is shrinking as people get better jobs.

“Those people are now earning more money, so it was for them a pathway to a higher job and I would rather have somebody come into the workforce at a lower level than not be able to come in at all,” he said.