'Time-consuming and so exhausting': Restaurant owner fed up with minimum wage subsidy program

A local restaurant owner is speaking out over problems she's encountered applying for a provincial program aimed at helping small businesses offset the impact of the minimum wage hike.

Wendy May owns The Oakwood Café on Osborne Street.

After minimum wage jumped in October of 2022 from $11.95 to $13.50 per hour, she applied for the newly available provincial aid.

The subsidy program recently expanded its eligibility, and is now applicable to businesses with up to 100 employees who live and work in Manitoba. It covers a 50-cent/hour wage subsidy for up to 20 employees during a six-month period.

It's retroactive from Oct. 1 to March 31, 2023.

May said she has submitted her application seven times, detailing a tedious process of online paperwork that reset each time she was rejected.

“(Sunday) was kind of the final straw, where we knew we had done everything right because I spoke with someone who's doing the administration, and they went through everything with me. So we knew exactly what to do, exactly the information that had to be submitted,” May told CTV News Winnipeg in an interview.

Still, she received an email Sunday saying her application had been rejected.

May said she reached out to Families Minister Rochelle Squires and never heard back, and even went to the Maitoba Legislative Building to talk to newly appointed Labour Minister Jon Reyes, but couldn't get in to see him.

By Tuesday, she got a call saying her application had been approved.

“To be honest, the process has been so time-consuming and so exhausting. I don't know how people are persevering. I know we're not the only business that's having troubles accessing the funding that is available,” she said.

The province told CTV News Winnipeg its minimum wage adjustment program administration team is responsible for reviewing and verifying all documentation required to support an online application.

Each employer is required to submit a new application for each two-week pay period.

It noted applications will be rejected if the supporting documentation isn't complete or is missing information, but businesses can resubmit once that documentation has been obtained.

As of Tuesday, more than 1,500 online applications had been submitted.