Alberta Tory interim leader Ric McIver has become a target of derision after blaming Alberta’s NDP government’s minimum wage policy for McDonald’s installing touchscreen self-service order kiosks across the province.
“4 less AB jobs due to #NDP minimum wage policy,” the Calgary-Hays MLA tweeted with a photo of some kiosks.
4 less AB jobs due to #NDP minimum wage policy. #ableg pic.twitter.com/Z2v8z7qWJT
— Ric McIver (@RicMcIver) February 17, 2016
“Actually I covered this launch for CTV,” CTV Edmonton’s Kim Taylor tweeted. “McDonald’s says they hired 10-15 MORE per store: greeters and table service.”
“Roving gangs of meth-withdrawl former rig workers maraud large swaths of the countryside, while unemployed hordes shiver in the wintery desolation of the province’s former large cities, now depopulated,” Redditor philwalkerp wrote sarcastically. “Once-proud oil barons tear their robes in frustration at the crushing and oppressive regime’s policies responsible for driving the price of oil to record low levels. Refugees flood into BC and Newfoundland. Hope is lost. I know this because I’ve been reading Conservative blogs.”
“Oddly enough, eThor – a world leader in this technology – was founded right here in Calgary,” angel investor Brian F. Singh tweeted.
The NDP government plans to raise Alberta’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.
“By keeping Alberta’s minimum wage as low as possible, many people and their families had no choice but to resort to food banks and social support programs to make ends meet,” Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson said last month. “Paying people a decent minimum wage will translate into a better life.”
McIver, a staunch supporter of the temporary foreign worker program, vehemently opposes increasing the minimum wage claiming that Premier Rachel Notley is driven by ideology and dogma into doing so.
“The NDP’s plan to increase the minimum wage to $15/hr, which is about one and a half times of what it is now, is completely ideologically and dogmatically driven,” McIver said. “It will not do what they say it will do, in fact it will probably do the exact opposite of what they say it will do.”
