While Labour Minister Christina Gray has said it is critical to pay low-end earners a fair wage, business and industry groups say it’s too much too fast and that an already reeling Alberta economy will lose thousands more jobs.

The latter sentiment is backed up by the Opposition Wildrose Party, which notes that while the NDP contends it has done a lot of stakeholder outreach, and talked to business owners, they’re not sharing what people are saying.

Cardston Taber Warner MLA Grant Hunter, who serves as a member of the Standing Committee on Alberta’s Economic Future and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, says there’s a reason why the NDP hasn’t been forthcoming.

“They don’t want to share it (information from stakeholder meetings) because the business owners, the people who are servers in restaurants, these folks are all telling us that they don’t want to see this. We’re concerned that we’ve asked them (NDP), please do an economic impact study and then share that information with Albertans and let Albertans decide whether they want to do this or not.”

Hunter notes that “whenever you increase the minimum wage past, say inflation, or you increase it quickly, a lot of studies out there show that there is an increase in loss of jobs.”

The opposition says the NDP’s argument is that they want to help the single moms with young kids. Unfortunately, Wildrose MLA Hunter says they don’t finish the sentence.

“They don’t say that if we go ahead and increase this minimum wage, that single mum with three young children may lose her job – they don’t want to say that to people because then people won’t support it – this is a carrot in front of the people’s face. They say, well we’re going to give you this $15 minimum wage and everybody would say yes. But, let’s take a look at the argument and say how is that going to help Albertans?”

According to Hunter, the best social program is a good job and if people are losing their jobs, they are going to lose hope. He explained that the bigger question when it comes to wage increases, is how are we competing with other jurisdictions.

“If every other jurisdiction in the world says we need to increase so that everybody has a $15 minimum wage, then our comparables are fine – we can compete”

The problem arises when our minimum wage is above other jurisdictions, which is about to happen.

“Which means we are not competitive at that point and businesses will go elsewhere and we’re seeing a lot of that – we’re seeing a huge amount of investment going to other provinces and this is just one of the programs that the NDP government is rushing forward, without actually doing an economic impact study and that’s what we’re really concerned about,” stated Hunter.

The Opposition MLA says he would love to have a robust discussion about the minimum wage.

“You know, when they (NDP) pass this sort of thing behind closed doors, you know that they don’t want to have a robust discussion, because they know that the evidence is not in their favour.”

Chambers of Commerce across the province noted that increasing the minimum wage will not help low income Albertans and the Wildrose rationale got significant backup on Thursday, when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) released new survey data which shows that the NDP wage increase will have a severe impact. Data that casts more doubt on the NDP decision.

Information from the survey noted one in four Alberta businesses will lay off employees because of the minimum wage hike. When asked what actions a business would take to cope with a $15 minimum wage, “26 percent will reduce the hours of staff and 26 per cent will cut down on the number of employees.”

The Wildrose put together some quick facts on the NDP minimum wage increase

— Alberta’s minimum wage is currently the second highest among the provinces, at only 5 cents behind Ontario.

— Both the Edmonton and Calgary Chamber of Commerce have highlighted that increasing the minimum wage will not be effective in helping Alberta’s low income families.

— Restaurants Canada warned that 75 per cent of the association’s Alberta members expect sales to continue to drop over the next six months and that a minimum wage increase will lead to further job loss.

— The Canadian Federation of Independent Business cited studies showing how a $15 minimum wage could create a 14 to 28 per cent increase in youth unemployment here in Alberta.