The city of New Westminster, B.C., has become the first municipality in Canada to adopt a living wage policy.
Approved unanimously by members of the council, the policy will reduce poverty and support working families by ensuring that all employees employed directly by the city - or indirectly through contractors - will earn at least $16.74 an hour. The rate is well above minimum wage rates in B.C. and across Canada.
The policy comes just a week after the Centre for Policy Alternatives in BC released a report called Working for a Living Wage 2010. The report claims that such a policy is necessary and must be emulated by other municipalities.
"For six years running, BC has had the highest child poverty rate in Canada. And BC has also realized the least progress (make that negative progress) since the House of Commons’ ill-fated 1989 resolution to end child poverty." reads the report. "While most provinces saw a drop in their child poverty rate between 1989 and 2007, only Ontario and BC saw the situation worsen, with BC experiencing the largest increase (30 per cent)."
The report goes on to say that the story of child poverty is very much a story of low wages. More than half of BC’s poor children (55.7 per cent) live in families where at least one adult has a full-time full-year job.