I understand that the group that brought forward the reports and the study that was done in 2015 did receive funding from the Anti-Poverty Fund to conduct that research. It is up to the employers, though, if they want to put forth paying their employees on a living wage or the minimum wage. Some of the employers that do decide to pay a living wage do it for many reasons. One of them is possibly to keep employees for long periods of time rather than spending more money on training and recruitment, so it is up to the employers on what they want to do. They do have to pay a minimum wage, which is $12.50, which we are currently going through a review.

Any families, whether they are families or individuals, that feel that they are not making enough money to meet their requirements for a living wage, we do also have a lot of programs within Housing, within Health and Social Services, within my department, the ECC, to help offset some of the costs.