A provincial advisory panel says Ontario’s minimum wage should be increased annually by inflation, the Star has learned.

But the panel’s report, to be released by the government Monday, doesn’t address the thorny issue of what today’s rate should be, sources say.

“It is a consensus report that took a very narrow focus on its mandate,” said a source who has seen the document.

The report also recommends businesses get four months notice before any increase takes effect and that the government review the scheme in five years.

Health-care professionals, workers’ rights and anti-poverty activists have been calling for a $14 minimum wage , indexed to inflation, to make up for the four-year freeze and to address growing poverty in the province. A $14 minimum wage would allow someone working a 35-hour week to live about 10 per cent above the poverty line, pegged at about $23,000 a year, before taxes. Currently, someone working 35 hours a week at minimum wage earns just $18,665 a year, before taxes and government transfers.

The six-member advisory panel of business, labour and youth representatives was appointed last summer to take the politics out of setting the minimum wage. At the time, Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi said the province wanted to move from the ad hoc increases of the past to a system that is both fair to minimum wage workers and predictable for business.

At the outset, panel chair and University of Toronto business professor Anil Verma said he wanted to come up with a system that would reflect economic growth and job productivity along with inflation.

The minimum wage’s role in fighting poverty would also be considered, he said during the July 2013 news conference when the panel was announced. But governments have other tools to fight poverty, such as taxes and income supplements, he noted.

The Liberals first promised the advisory panel in their 2011 budget. Finance Minister Charles Sousa renewed the pledge as part of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s first budget last May.

Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre, which has led the $14 minimum wage campaign, praised the panel’s recommendation on annual increases based on inflation.

“Indexation is really important,” she said when asked for comment. “It’s been one of the demands of our campaign that the cost of living is recognized. It’s an important way of making sure the minimum wage doesn’t fall behind.”

Ladd was disappointed the panel didn’t recommend what Ontario’s minimum wage should be today. But she wasn’t surprised.

“At the end of the day, it’s up to government to take leadership to ensure that someone who is working full time is living out of poverty. It’s only fair,” she said.

Ontario’s minimum wage was frozen for nine years before the Liberals came to power in 2003. Since then, it has gone from $6.85 an hour, one of the lowest in the country, to one of the highest at $10.25 in 2010.

Alberta, Nova Scotia and Yukon base annual minimum wage increases on the Consumer Price Index. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador are also considering the move.

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The share of minimum wage workers in Ontario has doubled in the past 10 years. Today, almost 500,000 workers — about one in nine — rely on minimum wage jobs.