The panel, chaired by University of Alberta economist Joseph Marchand, was appointed in August 2019 by Jason Copping, who was Alberta’s labor minister at the time. The commission submitted its report in February 2020, just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the document was never made public. “Our government has received and considered the work of the expert committee on the minimum wage. Due to the economic impact of COVID, the changing labor market and inflation, much of the report is no longer relevant,” Roy Dallmann, the minister’s press secretary Kaycee Madu’s work, told CBC News in an email. Alberta Labor does not plan to release the report and the provincial government will maintain the $15 minimum wage, Dallman said. The expert panel — which cost the provincial government about $24,492 — was a reaction to the former NDP government’s decision to raise the minimum wage in October 2019. Groups representing restaurants and small businesses criticized the government at the time, suggesting it was moving too quickly and that the initiative would cost jobs. The United Conservative Party promised in its 2019 election platform to form an expert panel on the minimum wage if voted into power. The panel will have two tasks: study the potential impact of the wage increase on the labor market and determine whether food and beverage servers would make more money in tips if they were paid a lower hourly rate. Alberta used to have a lower minimum wage for servers until the former NDP government scrapped it in 2016. It is not known whether the panel’s report recommended the restoration of the lower wage. The panel included Mark von Schellwitz, vice-president of Restaurants Canada, an organization that has advocated lowering the minimum wage for servers. Von Schellwitz told CBC News he could not say what the committee recommended because he is bound by a non-disclosure agreement. He said, however, lower wages allow restaurant owners to afford to give servers longer hours, which allows those employees to earn more tips. Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the Alberta government should release the panel’s report. “Albertans have a right to see the report. They paid for it,” he said, adding that the recommendations could provide insight into what a UCP government might try to implement if the party wins next year’s provincial election. The government introduced a $13 minimum wage for young people in June 2019 because it believed higher wages were reducing youth employment rates. The lower rate had no effect on how many young people got jobs, Notley said.
