Charlottetown, April 1st, 2026 – With Prince Edward Island’s minimum wage set to reach $17.00 per hour on April 1st, small business owners are increasingly questioning the sustainability of the current wage policy approach.
PEI, along with other Canadian provinces, now ranks among the highest jurisdictions globally when measured against the median wage. This reality underscores the need for a more careful, evidence-based, and less interventionalist policy on minimum wage. Continuing the current path could result in PEI’s minimum wage-to-median wage ratio approaching that of countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, and Mexico.
From 2024 to 2025, PEI experienced a concerning trend of 286 more businesses closing than opening, a pattern that has persisted for seven consecutive quarters. This statistic serves as a warning sign of Canada’s entrepreneurial drought on the island.
CFIB continues to recommend to the Prince Edward Island government that it maintain the current percentage of the median wage for the next five years. As all wages increase across the province, the minimum wage would also increase proportionally.
It’s important to recognize that minimum wage increases don’t operate in isolation. They ripple through entire payrolls, compress wage structures, and contribute to already elevated costs, including energy, inputs, borrowing, and other expenses.
While most small firms already pay above minimum wage, when increases outpace economic realities, they limit their ability to hire, invest, or expand.
The current approach fails to benefit the workers it aims to support and certainly doesn’t serve employers who only see out-of-market labour cost increases that don’t reflect actual economic conditions. It is high time for a proper legislative change of the Employment Standards Act to reflect this reality.
Frédéric Gionet, Director, PEI/Atlantic
Canadian Federation of Independent Business
C: 506-961-2793
frederic.gionet@cfib.ca
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses, with 103,000 members across every industry and region. In Atlantic Canada alone, CFIB represents more than 10,000 members, over 900 of them in PEI, and collectively employ more than 124,000 people in the region (10,200 in PEI). CFIB advocates for policy change at all levels of government, provides expert advice and tools, and negotiates exclusive savings to help business owners succeed. Learn more at cfib.ca.