Mr. Speaker, of course we have to create good quality jobs. Of course. We are completely, unanimously in support of creating good quality jobs. However, a good quality job also means a decent level of pay. It means not working for poverty level wages. Surely to goodness we can all agree on that.
We can quibble about how many workers are going to be affected by this. We happen to believe that in fact many tens of thousands of workers in the federal jurisdiction are now earning less than $15 an hour and would benefit from this change. There are lots of very low-paying jobs created in Canada today by companies that are making multi-million or sometimes billion-dollar profits. It is about sharing a bit of the prosperity, creating good jobs, and making sure that everybody benefits from that.
I will also say that the provinces have a key role to play. Most workers in Canada are under provincial jurisdiction. However, reinstating the federal minimum wage and setting it at a decent level will have the impact of spurring on the provinces. People will point to that and say that if the federal minimum wage is $15 an hour, something is wrong with my province. They will want to know why they cannot earn that wage in their part of the country.
This would be a good thing for all Canadians.