Business
Do Minimum Wage Laws Accomplish Anything?

David Clinton
All the smart people tell us that, one way or another, increasing the minimum wage will change society. Proponents claim raising pay at the low end of the economy will help low-income working families survive in hyper-expensive communities. Opponents claim that artificially increasing employment costs will either drive employers towards adopting innovative automation integrations or to shut down their businesses altogether. Either way, goes the anti-intervention narrative, there will be fewer jobs available.
Well, whatāll it be? Canadian provinces have been experimenting with minimum wage laws for many years. And since 2021, the federal government has imposed its own rate for employees of allĀ federally regulated industries. There should be plenty of good data out there by now indicating who was right.
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Historical records on provincial rates going back decades isĀ available from Statistics Canada. For this research, I used data starting in 2011. Since new rates often come into effect mid-year, I only applied a yearās latest rate to the start of the following year. 2022 itself, for simplicity, was measured by the new federal rate, with the exception of British Columbia whoās rate was $0.10 higher than the federal rate.
My goal was to look for evidence that increasing statutory wage rates impacted these areas:
- Earnings among workers in full-service restaurants
- Operating profit margins for full-service restaurants
- Total numbers of active businesses in the accommodation and food services industries
I chose to focus on the food service industry because itās particularly dependent on low-wage workers and particularly sensitive to labour costs. Outcomes here should tell us a lot about the impact such government policies are having.
Restaurant worker incomeĀ is reported as total numbers. In other words, we can see how much all of, say, Manitobaās workers combined took home in a given year. For those numbers to make sense, I adjusted them using overall provincial populations.
Income in British Columbia and PEI showed a strong correlation to increasing minimum wages. Interestingly, BC has consistently had the highest of all provincesā minimum wage while PEIās has mostly hung around the middle of the pack. Besides a weak negative correlation in Saskatchewan, there was no indication that income in other provinces either dropped or grew in sync with increases to the minimum wage.
Nation-wide, by weighting results by population numbers, we got a Pearson coefficient 0.30. That means itās unlikely that wage rate changes had any impact on take-home income.
Did increases harm restaurants? It doesnāt look like it. I usedĀ data measuring active employer businessesĀ in the accommodation and food services industries. No provinces showed any impact on business startups and exits that could be connected to minimum wage laws. Overall, Canadaās coefficient value was 0.29 – again a very weak positive relationship.
So restaurants havenāt been collapsing at epic, extinction-level rates. But do government minimums cause a reduction in theirĀ operating profit margins? Apparently not. If anything, theyāve becomeĀ moreĀ profitable!
The nation-wide coefficient between minimum wages and restaurant profitability was 0.88 – suggesting a strong correlation. But how could that be happening? Donāt labour costs make up a major chunk of food service operating expenses? Here are a few possible explanations:
- Perhaps many restaurants respond to rising costs by increasing their menu prices. This can work out well if market demand turns out to be relatively inelastic and people continue eating out despite higher prices.
- Higher wages might lead to lower employee turnover, reducing hiring and training costs.
- A higher minimum wage boosts worker incomes, leading to more disposable income in the economy. Although the flip-side is that we canāt see strong evidence of higher worker income.
- Higher wages can force unprofitable, inefficient restaurants to close, leaving stronger businesses with higher market share.
In any case, my big-picture verdict on government intervention into private sector wage rates is: thanks but donāt bother. All that effort doesnāt seem to have improved actual incomes on a population scale. At the same time, it also hasnāt driven industries with workers at the low-end of the pay scale to devastating collapse.
But Iām sure it has taken up enormous amounts of public service time and resources that could undoubtedly have been more gainfully spent elsewhere. More important, as theĀ economist Alex Tabarrok recently pointed out, minimum wage laws have been shown to reduce employment for the disabled and measurably increase both consumer prices and workplace injuries.
Automotive
$15 Billion, Zero Assurances: Stellantis Abandons Brampton as Trudeau-Era Green Deal Collapses

Carney issues memos, Joly writes letters, and Freeland hides abroadāwhile 3,000 Canadian workers pay the price for a green gamble built on denial and delusion.
Stellantis has announced theyāre leaving Brampton. Thatās it. End of story.
Three thousand workers. Gone. A manufacturing base gutted. A city thrown into economic chaos. And a federal government left holding a $15 billion bag it handed over like a drunk tourist at a rigged poker table.
The Jeep Compassāthe very vehicle they promised would anchor Ontarioās role in the so-called āEV transitionāāwill no longer be built in Canada. Production is moving to Belvidere, Illinois. The same company that cashed billions of your tax dollars under the banner of āgreen jobsā and āeconomic transformationā has slammed the door and walked out. And no, this isnāt a surprise. This was baked into the cake from day one.
Letās rewind.
In April 2023, under Justin Trudeauās government, Chrystia Freelandāthen Finance Ministerāand FranƧois-Philippe Champagne, the Industry Minister, announced what they called a āhistoricā agreement: a multi-billion-dollar subsidy package to Stellantis and LG Energy Solution to build an EV battery plant in Windsor, Ontario.
It was sold as a turning point. The future. A Green Revolution. Thousands of jobs. A new industrial strategy for Canada. But in reality? It was a Hail Mary pass by a government that had already crippled Canadaās energy sector and needed a shiny new narrative heading into an election cycle.
And hereās what they didnāt tell you: the deal had no enforceable commitment to keep auto production in Brampton. There wereĀ performance-based incentivesāyesābut only for the battery plant. Not for the Brampton assembly line. Not for the existing workforce. And certainly not for ensuring the long-term health of Canadaās domestic auto industry.
They tied this countryās future to a globalist fantasy. A fantasy that assumed the United States would remain under the control of climate-obsessed technocrats like Joe Biden. A fantasy that required a compliant America pushing carbon neutrality, electric vehicle mandates, and billions in matching subsidies for green infrastructure.
But in November 2024, Americans said no.
Donald Trump was elected president. And just as he promised, he tore Bidenās green agenda to shreds. He pulled out of the Paris Climate Accordāagain. He dismantled the EV mandates. He unleashed American oil and gas. But he didnāt stop there. Trump imposed a sweeping America First manufacturing policy, pairing 25% tariffs on imported goods with aggressive incentives to bring factories, jobs, and supply chains back onto U.S. soil.
And itās workingābecause the United States doesnāt strangle its industries with the kind of red tape, carbon taxes, and bureaucratic self-sabotage that Canada does. Energy is cheaper, regulations are lighter, and capital actually wants to stay. So when companies like Stellantis look at the map, itās no contest.
Now Stellantis, like any rational corporation, is doing what any business does under pressure: protecting its bottom line. Theyāre shifting production to a country that rewards investment instead of punishing it, a country that actually wants to build things again. Thatās Trumpās Americaācompetitive, unapologetic, and open for businessāwhile Canada clings to a collapsing green fantasy and wonders why the factories keep leaving.

So what does Canada do in response? Our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, issues a carefully scripted memo on social mediaānot action, not legislation, not binding commitmentsājust a memoāreassuring workers he āstands byā the auto sector while offering vague promises about future budgets and long-term resilience. Lets be clear Carney isnāt saving jobs; heās eulogizing them. Those 3,000 positions arenāt āpausedā or āin transition.ā Theyāre gone. Finished. Packed up and heading south. No memo, no committee, no press conference is bringing them back.
Chrystia Freeland, the architect of this mess, isnāt around to answer for any of it. Sheās been conveniently shipped off to Kyiv, far from the consequences of the green boondoggles she helped engineer

And Industry Minister MĆ©lanie Joly? Sheās doing what this government does best: issuing strongly worded letters, drafted by lawyers, polished by comms teams, and lobbed into the void like they carry any real weight. Sheās threatening legal action against Stellantisāvague, undefined, and almost certainly toothless. As if a global automaker backed by EU investors and billions in international capital is going to flinch because Ottawa wrote them a nasty note.
But letās be absolutely clear hereāwhat legal action? Whatās the actual mechanism Ottawa is threatening to use? This wasnāt a blank cheque handed to Stellantis. According to public records, The $15 billion deal was built around performance-based incentives, structured to release funding only if Stellantis delivered on agreed milestones: production output, sales volume, battery module manufacturing at the Windsor facility. If they didnāt meet those metrics, they wouldnāt get paid. Thatās the public line. Thatās the defense.
Opposition Calls for Accountability
Conservatives, led by Raquel Dancho, are demanding real accountability, a formal investigation, a full reopening of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) under Standing Order 106(4).
This isnāt a symbolic gesture. Itās a procedural weapon. When invoked, 106(4) forces Parliament to reconvene the committee,Ā even if the government doesnāt want to,Ā and compels ministers and officials to testify under oath. Thatās what Dancho and her colleagues, Ted Falk, Michael Guglielmin, and Kathy Borrelli, have done. Their letter, dated October 15, 2025, demands that INDU immediately examine the Stellantis debacle ā the $15 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy that failed to secure a single guarantee for Canadian auto jobs.
The letter is explicit. It references Stellantisā decision to move Jeep Compass production from Brampton, Ontario to Illinois, a move that puts 3,000 Canadian jobs at risk despite the billions handed to the automaker under the Trudeau-Freeland-Carney green industrial strategy. It details how the federal and Ontario governments offered over $15 billion to secure battery plant investments, but with no enforceable job protection clauses to safeguard workers at Stellantisās Canadian operations.
It doesnāt stop there. The letter points directly at Mark Carney, accusing him of breaking his promise to āput elbows upā and negotiate a fair deal with President Trump. It notes that Carneyās October 7th White House visit yielded nothing but new U.S. tariffs on Canadian autos and lumber, while Stellantis and GM expanded their operations south of the border. āMark Carney broke his promise,ā the MPs write, āand his weakness abroad is costing Canadian jobs at home.ā

Danchoās accompanying tweet lays out the message clearly and without spin:
āStellantis received up to $15 billion in taxpayer subsidiesāwith no assurances of job retention in Canada. Yesterday, Stellantis announced that they were moving production to the U.S. and investing $13 billion in their economy. Conservatives are calling to reconvene the Industry Committee to study this decision and learn how such a failure happened. While the Liberals pat themselves on the back for announcements and rhetoric, auto workers are being told that their jobs are on the chopping block. They deserve clarity.ā
Danchoās move changes the game. With the NDP gutted and no longer shielding the government in committee, the opposition finally has the numbers and the mandate to dig. Ministers like MĆ©lanie Joly and FranƧois-Philippe Champagne will now have to answer, under oath, for the deals they signed. Officials from Innovation, Finance, and Employment Canada will be subpoenaed to explain what oversight, if any, was built into the Stellantis agreements.
Final thoughts
I wrote about this when the deal was signed, and I wasnāt guessing. I said it plainly: this $15 billion green industrial experiment was a reckless, ideological bet that depended entirely on Donald Trump not winning the presidency.
Now here we are. Trumpās back in office ā and heās gone even further than I predicted. He didnāt just rip up Bidenās climate agenda; he imposed broad āAmerica Firstā tariffs across the board to drag manufacturing back onto U.S. soil. Twenty-five percent duties on Canadian and Mexican goods, combined with tax breaks and energy policies that make it cheaper to produce in America than anywhere else. That single move detonated the fragile logic behind Trudeau and Freelandās so-called industrial strategy.
So Stellantis did what any corporation would do when faced with a government that punishes production and a neighbour that rewards it: it packed up and left. The company took billions in Canadian subsidies, thanked Ottawa for the free money, then announced a $13 billion expansion in the United Statesāunder Trumpās protectionist umbrella.
Letās be clear: when I bet, I bet smart. I hedge. I read the table. I make damn sure Iām holding something real. These peopleāthe Liberal governmentāwent all in with a high card and a hollow narrative, betting your tax dollars on a political fantasy. They thought they could bluff their way into an industrial renaissance while ignoring the shift happening just across the border.
And you want final thoughts? Here they are: I am absolutely sickened by the people responsible for this disaster and you know exactly who I mean. Chrystia Freeland, who vanished from Cabinet and failed up into some made up ambassadorās post, her entire political career a string of bailouts, virtue signals, and globalist pageantry. And FranƧois-Philippe Champagne, the man who handed out our tax dollars like Monopoly money and couldnāt negotiate a cup of coffee without being outplayed.
They won an election based on this. Based on lies. Based on phony climate promises and fake job projections and polls manipulated by the same Mainstream Media that cashes federal subsidy cheques while calling themselves journalists. Do you think theyāre going to hold Champagne accountable? Do you think theyāre going to track Freeland down between photo ops in Kyiv and ask how 3,000 Canadian families are supposed to pay their mortgage now?
Of course not. Theyāre all on the same payroll.
Well guess what, Iām not. I donāt take their money. I donāt need their approval. And I am not shutting up. Not now. Not until that committee gets answers. Not until those ministers are dragged before Parliament. And not until Chrystia Freeland and FranƧois-Philippe Champagne are fired for the betrayal theyāve inflicted on Canadian workers.
This isnāt over. Not by a long shot. Iām going to bang this drum until it splits. And every time they try to bury this story, Iāll be there digging it back up. Youāve been lied to. Robbed. Betrayed. And someone is finally going to answer for it.
So stay tuned. Stay loud. And for Godās sake, stay angry.
Business
Fordās Whisky War

Marco Navarro-GƩnie
One could do a whole series of opinion and research pieces on how poorly educated Canadian politicians are about economic and trade principles. Below is my latest on the topic, focusing on Doug Ford’s latest philistine tantrum. My next piece will be on Wab Kinew. Writing on their lack of discipline and poor habits can be a cottage industry for commentators.
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When a politician pours whisky on the ground, it usually means she has run out of ideas.
A few weeks ago, in September, Ontario Premier Doug Ford staged a protest worthy of a talk-show segment. Before a union crowd in Brampton, he emptied a bottle of Crown Royal onto the stage and vowed its maker, Diageo, would āpay dearly.ā He threatened to pull Crown Royal (and several ither brands) from LCBO shelves, declaring Ontario would use its market power to punish the distiller for closing its Amherstburg bottling plant.
It was a vivid scene, part theatre, part tantrum, and entirely revealing.
Diageo is one of the worldās largest producers of spirits and beer, headquartered in London, England. It owns more than two hundred brands, including Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Tanqueray, and Baileys, and sells in over 180 countries. The company was formed in 1997 through the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan, and it inherited Crown Royal from the old Seagram portfolio. Diageoās Canadian operations remain significant, with the Gimli, Manitoba distillery producing every drop of Crown Royal whisky sold worldwide. Itās a Canadian product.
Diageoās decision was not an act of treachery but arithmetic. The company plans to close its Amherstburg facility by 2026, shifting bottling to Quebec and parts of the United States. Roughly two hundred jobs will vanish. For a town of twenty-three thousand, that is a deep cut. Yet Fordās reaction transforms an industrial decision into a political drama. He recasts an economic adjustment as a moral betrayal, as if loyalty to Ontario were a debt every business must pay in perpetuity.
That sentiment plays well at partisan rallies. But in practice, it blurs the boundary between government and market. When politicians confuse the two, policy becomes a tool of temper rather than governance.
Once a premier signals that he will use public institutions like the LCBO as weapons, investors take note. And they should. They infer that Ontarioās business climate can change with the premierās mood. Capital, unlike politicians, is dispassionate. It goes where rules are predictable and contracts honoured, not where leaders lecture firms for disobedience.
Markets, as Adam Smith observed, are a network of trust. Replace trust with coercion or shaming, and investment flows away as surely as whisky poured on the pavement.
Ford casts himself as the friend of āworking people.ā Yet his fury threatens workers far from Ontario. The whisky he attacked onstage is distilled and aged in Gimli, Manitoba, from prairie grain and Canadian labour. Eighty people work at that distillery. Thousands of farmers supply its rye and corn. If Diageo decides Canada has become a political hazard, those Manitoban jobs will be among the first casualties. A tantrum in Brampton can send a chill all the way to Lake Winnipeg.
This is the irony of populist economic nationalism: in defending a few hundred local jobs, it imperils thousands more across the whole federation. Itās thoughtless.
Fordās rhetoric also clashes with his own record. When electric-vehicle battery ventures trimmed their job projections despite billions in subsidies, the premier offered understanding, not outrage. When Brookfield shifted parts of its business operations abroad, there was no rally, no public denunciation, no bottle hitting the floor. Evidently, corporate disloyalty is tolerable, until it involves whisky.
Such inconsistency is not a principle but an impulse. Governments that choose favourites create uncertainty for everyone. When rules bend to political sentiment, each firm wonders whether it will be next in line for punishment. And so the province that once competed for investment becomes a place investors compete to avoid.
If Ford truly wished to defend Ontarioās workers, he would ask why bottling in his province became uneconomic in the first place. The answer is not a mystery. Ontario carries high energy costs, heavy regulation, and steep land prices. Every company weighs those burdens. Threatening one firm for noticing them will not persuade others to stay.
Political anger cannot repeal common sense arithmetic.
The irony deepens because Crown Royal remains Canadian in every essential sense. Its grains, water, and labour are Canadian. Its distilling craft and heritage are Canadian. Ownership by a British firm changes the shareholder, not the spirit. Punishing that success because it offends provincial pride reduces patriotism to parochialism. The brandās global reach is a quiet advertisement for Canadian skill, and it is an achievement to be respected, not vandalized.
The premierās defenders will say he is merely standing up for Ontario workers. But bluster is not courage. Proper defence of working people lies in creating the conditions that let enterprise and local ingenuity flourish. When government swaps policy for theatre, it only feeds resentment and starves opportunity.
Economic freedom depends on restraint. Governments must regulate and tax modestly, but they must also know when not to act. Every unnecessary intervention signals risk. The LCBO should be a neutral marketplace, not a political cudgel. Once it becomes a stage for senseless retribution, the line between free commerce and state coercion dissolves.
Ontarioās grievance is understandable; its method is reckless. A government may lament job losses, negotiate incentives, or compete for reinvestment. It may not commandeer a marketplace to punish a decision it dislikes. In a constitutional order, power is exercised through law, not vendetta.
Amherstburg deserves sympathy. No question. Two hundred jobs lost in a small town is no abstraction. Yet the premierās faux fury will not restore them. Instead, it risks ensuring that the next investor leaves quietly rather than risk the wrath of the premier and public humiliation. Markets remember humiliation longer than speeches.
Crown Royal will survive this episode. The whisky made in Gimli will continue to be sold worldwide, enjoyed by people who have never heard, and will likely never hear, of Ontarioās premier. But the image of a provincial leader pouring it out onstage will endure too. It is an emblem of how quickly cheap populism can trade reason for spectacle.
Ontario must decide what kind of province it wishes to be: a jurisdiction that welcomes enterprise, or one that punishes it when it moves. If every business is expected to pledge fealty to the premierās emotions, the province will learn how swiftly loyalty evaporates.
When politics meddles in markets, both lose dignity. The government becomes a performer; the market, its prop. The result is neither freedom nor prosperity, only theatre.
Doug can pour out all whisky in Ontario, if he likes. The rest of the world will raise a glass to markets that keep their cool.
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