MILTON - A senior Ontario government source says Premier Doug Ford is set to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The source, who wasn't authorized to share the news publicly ahead of a late morning announcement by the premier, says it will rise from its current $14.35 on Jan. 1.
Ford's government cancelled a scheduled increase from $14 to $15 that was supposed to happen in 2019.
The previous year, the Liberal government at the time bumped the minimum wage up from $11.60 to $14 an hour, and businesses complained about the speed with which that rise happened.
The Ford government said that increase was a lot for businesses to absorb, so they were cancelling the next scheduled increase to $15 to allow companies to catch up.
Increases since then have been tied to inflation, and the most recent increase on Oct. 1 was 10 cents.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2021.
The Canadian Press