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Strong words at the NDP’s weekend convention about Alberta’s minimum wage and labour laws aren’t sitting too well with business groups.

Premier Rachel Notley vowed in her Saturday speech to party members that the government will keep its campaign promise of a $15-an-hour minimum wage by 2018, daring opposition parties to run in the 2019 election on repealing the higher rate.

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Photo by Bruce Edwards / Edmonton Journal

In a Monday interview, Ken Kobly, president of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, said that last week he took part in three separate consultation meetings on the minimum wage put on by the government and had planned to be involved in more.

“So what was the purpose of the consultation?” said an exasperated Kobly.

“Basically, if it is going to go to 2018, $15 an hour, what was the purpose of wasting everyone’s time in a consultation?”

Amber Ruddy, director of provincial affairs with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said she found Notley’s minimum wage stance — and her rhetoric of daring the opposition — to be “disappointing.”