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Premier Jason Kenney’s cavalier approach to the minimum wage has led to one of Bill 2’s most regressive changes in a piece of legislation filled with them.

By lowering the minimum wage to $13 from $15 for an estimated 35,000 workers aged 13-17 — for the first 28 hours per week when school is in session and for all hours worked during the summer — the UCP has kept one of its most controversial election promises while facilitating the increased exploitation of young workers for the sake of higher private profits.

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This isn’t the first time a conservative government has implemented an age-based minimum wage differential in Alberta. We had one in the 1990s, called a “training wage,” that allowed employers to pay 50 cents less per hour to those under 18.

The Klein government, however, nixed its unequal youth wage in 1998.

“One, we know that employees, particularly young people, are far more job-ready than they’ve ever been before,” then labour minister Murray Smith told the legislature.