Among the people who applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) while being ineligible are some of the most poor and marginalized people in Nova Scotia. Now the federal government is considering demanding that money paid to ineligible applicants be returned, and poverty advocates fear this will push many into an even more dire financial situation.

“I took every shift I could get, up to 70-hours per week, to make ends meet. With wages that low, this is what you have to do.” Lisa Cameron reports on Justin Trudeau’s 2019 promise of a federal minimum wage of at least $15 and hour, starting in 2020, and rising with inflation. We are in the final days of 2020, and yet Trudeau has taken no steps to honour this commitment.

Press release: Last year, Justin Trudeau promised “a federal minimum wage of at least $15 per hour, starting in 2020 and rising with inflation, with provisions to ensure that where provincial or territorial minimum wages are higher, that wage will prevail.” The year-end is quickly approaching, and yet there has been no movement to honour this commitment.