Minimum Wage in Ontario and Canada
By Bonny Mak Waterfall
Breathe easy – the $28.00 per hour minimum wage depicted in this bus shelter ad is not in effect in Ontario, or anywhere in Canada. It is the minimum wage in Hong Kong as of May 1, 2011. Prior to that, no statutory minimum wage existed in Hong Kong.
To put things in perspective, $28.00 Hong Kong Dollars is approximately equivalent to $3.70 Canadian Dollars. In other words, the current Ontario minimum wage of $10.25 per hour is approximately 2.8 times that of Hong Kong’s.
The Ontario minimum wage is not the highest in Canada. That distinction belongs to Nunavut, whose current minimum wage is $11.00 per hour. The chart below sets out the minimum wage rates in the various provinces and territories in Canada, from the lowest to the highest rates.
Source: HRSDC