A lobby group for small businesses wants Alberta's government to temporarily freeze the province's minimum wage but is stopping short of asking for it to be scrapped altogether.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business wants the province to `abandon the policy to index minimum wage to average weekly earnings and champion a new way to help lower-income Albertans' in 2009.
Alberta's minimum wage sits at $8.40 an hour, but it could increase by up to five per cent, or 42 cents, on April 1, based on the average weekly wage in the previous year.
The federation says indexing the minimum wage this way is `seriously flawed' in times of economic prosperity as well as weakness.
The federation says that's because it is applied broadly without regard for regional differences.
Rather than raise the wage during a time when many Alberta companies have frozen wages, the CFIB says it would make more sense for the government to increase the basic personal exemption to $17,472 in the upcoming budget.
