Mr. Speaker, fair wages benefit the whole community. I do not know if anyone could argue with that.
There are low-wage, low-cost economies, like the United States and even like some provinces. They advertise themselves as this, thinking it will attract investment if they say they are a low-wage, low-cost economy. Frankly, the product of that leaves a lot of social consequences.
Then there are places like New Zealand and Australia where a coffee server in a coffee shop makes $22 an hour. People working at London Drugs or whatever their equivalent is make $25 an hour. I have been to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where, again, a coffee shop worker makes $20 to $25 an hour.
Here, for some reason we have convinced ourselves that it is a good thing to have low wages. How can that possibly be a good thing? In the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world, how is it a good idea to pay people a wage they cannot live on?
The rate of child poverty in Norway, Denmark and Sweden is zero. There are no poor children there because they believe in fair wages for people.
What is wrong with this country?