OK. This is just a very small sample. Maybe it means nothing, but I am mentioning it anyway.
Recently I have dined out at 3 different restaurants.
One is a large sit down chicken restaurant, easily seating 150 or more people. It's local, and we have been may times over the last 9 years since we moved to Newmarket. We went on Saturday evening and the first thing we heard was from the waitress, who warned us that service would be slow.
At one point, she could not refill our soft drinks, because, although they replacement canisters in the basement, no one had time to go downstairs to bring them up.
Then she apologized again because they were shorthanded.
A few days later we went for lunch on Sunday to another franchise burger chain: a sit down restaurant to which we again had been numerous times. Unfortunately, the same thing happened. We were warned before we sat down that they were shorthanded and it would take longer.
during our meal, the waitress confided that the short-handedness was probably permanent, and that her tip percentage had dropped significantly since the minimum wage went up.
At yet a third restaurant, also a franchise but for fish and chips this time, the same thing again happened.
I am not necessarily reading anything into this, just making a brief observation, but it does seem apparent that jobs are being lost. Thanks again Ontario Liberals.