Obviously everyone who gets up and goes to work has a real job. Outside the legislature, Houston did apologize for his comment when it was raised by journalists. That wage is still well below what is often characterized as “a living wage,” in the range of $22 an hour. This was insulting and beneath the premier and I certainly think he owes the minimum wage workers an apology.”īurrill said if the pandemic taught us one lesson, it’s that “there are thousands of people working who aren’t making much money without whose contributions our economy would cease to function.”īurrill and the NDP proposed a bill to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour next spring as a lever to help people get out of poverty. “To say that the work of cleaners and servers and people who work in corner stores and gas stations and CCAs, that these people are doing something that a person ought not to aspire to.

“I thought what Tim Houston said this afternoon about minimum wage workers was denigrating and demeaning and degrading,” said Burrill to journalists after Question Period ended. I don’t know many Nova Scotians that grow up thinking, ‘boy, I hope I make minimum wage when I grow up.’ That’s not the way people think. “And it’s not driven by the minimum wage. “What I’m focused on is the economy of this province and making sure everyone has an opportunity and sees themselves as being able to thrive right here in Nova Scotia,” replied Houston.

Houston responded by talking about the need to provide more training opportunities for people so they could apply for better-paying jobs in many areas of the economy experiencing acute labour shortages. NDP leader Gary Burrill said there are 40,000 Nova Scotians earning minimum wage who are struggling to make ends meet who do not understand why the government isn’t doing anything to help them. Premier Tim Houston was challenged about why the province refuses to look at raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

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