Okotoks Chamber of Commerce CEO Cheryl Actemichuk and President Amber Chapman

The Okotoks Chamber of Commerce is advocating for local businesses on the effects of raising minimum wage.

The Alberta Chambers of Commerce conducted a survey based on the Provincial Government's proposal to increase Alberta's minimum wage from $10.20 per hour to $15 per hour and saw 1,430 respondents.

Okotoks Chamber of Commerce CEO Cheryl Actemichuk says the government needs to know what the downside is going to be.

"We talked to one of our local businesses who has a huge staff who said 'you know a lot of our staff are maybe at 12, 13 dollars an hour, if we raise those to 15 what are the impacts to people making 16 or 17? they're going to want an increase as well' and so if you increase those people pretty soon the cost of the services goes up and then you have less people coming through your door so then you start laying people off," she says.

Actemichuk says the increase will actually lead to a decrease in net income.

"Ken Kolby the President and CEO of the Alberta Chamber did some figuring out himself and figured out that somebody earning $10.20 an hour versus somebody earning $15 an hour, at the end of the year because of a loss, perhaps GST credits, child tax benefits, maybe housing subsidies, at the end of the year their net is actually going to be $6,900 less," she says.

The survey results will be presented to the government sometime in the near future.

To view the full results of the survey click here.

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