By Tom Parkin
November 1st, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Now a “have-not” province, Ontario has no clear economic strategy despite the flurry of weak data.
While the average wage rose in every other province in August, Ontario’s average hourly wage fell for a second straight month, according to data released by Statistics Canada Thursday morning.
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Ontario’s average wage fell to $30.25 in August, down from a June, 2024 peak of $30.87 to a level below February’s average hourly wage of $30.34.
Alberta’s average hourly wage, once by far the strongest in Canada, has now slipped into third spot, behind British Columbia at $31.91 and Quebec at $30.80.
No clear economic strategy despite data
Despite Ontario’s worrying metrics, the Ford PCs have not provided a strategy to push investment into improved productivity and securing future wage growth.
A failure to address the GTA housing crisis has driven up household debt, which became sharply more expensive under the weight of higher interest rates. The impact on household budgets can be seen in Ontario’s retail sales, which remain 4.5 per cent below a peak in June 2022 while Canada excluding Ontario hit a new record in retail sales in August.
Weaker consumer demand has hurt jobs, with Ontario’s unemployment rate higher than the national average while over 13,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2018, when Premier Ford gave a “guarantee” he would created 300,000 manufacturing jobs to replace those lost in the Liberal era.
The wage fall comes as Ontario continues to de-unionize with Alberta-style labour laws that ban “card check” certification for most workers and give employers more opportunities to interfere in unionization efforts.
A weakened economy has turned Ontario from a contributor to the confederation to a have-not province receiving equalization payments from Ottawa.
Tom Parkin is a social democratic columnist and commentator based in Toronto who has worked for the NDP in Saskatchewan and Ontario.
This is an interesting trend which will likely also play out in Burlington given the current Council’s economic focus. Burlington has historically been a bedroom community for residents working in downtown Toronto and Hamilton. We are starting to see the conflicts of the new strategy of encouraging tourism and post secondary education, more cyclical industries. Council has heard the AirBnb issues (noise and transient population) but allows them to continue throughout the City to support their tourism and education strategy. Highrise investment developments are replacing more sustainable businesses (note Fairview Street and Plains Road) and we will see an increase of students and hospitality focussed employment at the expense of our historical employment.