Legislativew Roundup

ALBERTA

Reminder: Minimum wages going up Oct. 1

The general minimum wage rate in Alberta will rise from $10.20 an hour to $11.20 on Oct. 1. The minimum wage rate for liquor servers will go from $9.20 an hour to $10.70. The increase is part of a two-step plan to eliminate a separate liquor server rate as of Oct. 1, 2016.

Notley has previously said the government plans to increase the general minimum wage rate to $15 an hour by 2018. It has been consulting with industry associations that represent employers that typically pay minimum wage, as well as labour and public interest advocacy organizations, about establishing a new way to set minimum wage rates.

Other minimum wage rates will also increase on Oct. 1. The rate for certain salespersons specified in provincial regulations will rise from $406 per week to $446. The rate for domestic employees who live in their employer’s residence will increase from $1,937 per month to $2,127.

Employers with Alberta payrolls will have to implement personal income tax changes for Oct. 1 as part of the provincial government’s plan to replace Alberta’s flat-rate income tax system with a graduated rate structure based on taxable income.

Under the new graduated system, there will be five tax brackets and rates:

Tax rate effective Oct. 1, 2015Currently, a single income tax rate of 10 per cent applies to all taxable income.Although the rate changes will take place on Oct. 1, the personal income tax system only supports annual rates that come into effect on Jan. 1. As a result, the Alberta government has passed legislative amendments to retroactively change the income tax rates to the following prorated amounts, effective Jan. 1, 2015:The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will consider the rates in the second table (below) to be the rates that apply in the province from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30. For source deduction purposes, effective Oct. 1, the CRA will implement the rates listed in the first table for employers that use Option 1 to calculate income tax deductions. For employers that use the CRA’s Option 2, the rates in the second table will continue to apply.

Effective Sept. 15, the general minimum wage rate in the province will rise to $10.45 an hour from $10.25.

The rate for employees who serve liquor will increase to $9.20 an hour from $9. Other rates, including piecework rates for farm workers, will also go up in mid-September.

Beginning Sept. 15, 2016, the province will index minimum wage rates using increases in the consumer price index (CPI) for British Columbia for the previous year (rounded to the nearest nickel). In years where the CPI change is negative, the minimum wage would not change. The government will announce rate changes in March each year to give businesses time to adjust.

The province’s general minimum wage rate will rise from $10.70 per hour to $11 on Oct. 1, the Department of Labour and Immigration announced.

The minimum wage rate for security guards who hold a license issued under the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act will rise from $10.95 an hour to $11.75 on Oct. 1.

The provincial government is asking for public feedback on its workers’ compensation legislation.

The deadline for submitting feedback to the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour is Sept. 25.

The general minimum wage rate in Ontario will rise from $11 an hour to $11.25 on Oct. 1.

Other minimum wage rates in the province will also go up. The rate for students who are under 18 and work less than 28 hours a week (or more than 28 hours during school vacation) will go up from $10.30 an hour to $10.55. The rate for liquor servers will rise from $9.55 an hour to $9.80. The minimum wage rate paid to homeworkers will increase from $12.10 an hour to $12.40.

The minimum wage for hunting and fishing guides will also rise on Oct. 1.

The provincial government is considering adding new unpaid leaves to its employment standards legislation.

A leave for a critically ill child would allow eligible employees to take up to 37 weeks off work without pay to provide care and support for their critically ill child, if the child is under the age of 18.

A leave for crime-related child death or disappearance would allow eligible employees to take up to 52 weeks off pay without pay if their child has disappeared as a result of a probable crime.

If the child has died as the result of a probable crime, the employee would be allowed to take up to 104 weeks off.

Quebec’s National Assembly recently passed legislation that will consolidate a number of labour-related government bodies into a new organization, beginning next year.

The Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail will replace the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST), the Commission des normes du travail (CNT) and the Commission de l’équité salariale.

The government may also merge the Régie des rentes du Québec (RRQ) and the Commission administrative des régimes de retraite et d’assurances (CARRA). RRQ administers the Act respecting the Quebec Pension Plan, the Voluntary Rerirement Savings Plan Act and the Supplemental Pension Plans Act. CARRA administers a number of public sector plans.

The minimum wage rate in the province will rise from $10.20 per hour to $10.50 on Oct. 1..

The province reviews the minimum wage rate every year using an indexation formula based on an equal weighting of the change in the province’s consumer price index and average hourly wage for the past year.

The minimum wage rate in Newfoundland and Labrador will rise from $10.25 per hour to $10.50 on Oct. 1.

The government announced the rate hike last year.

Once the rate increase takes effect, the government says the provincial minimum wage rate will have increased by 75 per cent in 10 years.

The minimum overtime wage rate will continue to be fixed at 1.5 times the minimum wage, rounded to the nearest cent.