The Living Wage

12 The living wage movement in Canada

Danielle van Jaarsveld, Samantha Coronel, and Reed Eaglesham

Introduction

In Canada, unions, anti-poverty advocates and politicians have turned to the living wage to address concern about growing income inequality despite the presence of a national healthcare system, and stronger labour and employment regulations than the US. The prevailing living wage definition in Canada refers to the ‘hourly rate of pay at which a household can meet its expenses once government transfers have been added and government deductions from wages and government taxes have been subtracted’ (Richards et al., 2008: 24). From 2001 to 2020, the living wage movement spread from British Columbia (BC) and Ontario, where the living ...