Iqaluit (Feb 17/03) - The minimum wage across Nunavut is going up to $8.50 an hour on March 3, but the big question is: who cares?

From several phone calls around Nunavut, it seems most businesses are already paying above the proposed minimum wage.

Staff at Auyuittuq Lodge in Panniqtuuq, for example, are paid about $4 more than the new minimum.

Employees at the Hall Beach Co-op are also above the $8.50 level.

The minimum wage is $7 an hour if you are 16-years-old or older.

It's $6.50 an hour if you are younger than 16. The new wage rate eliminates the age difference. Now, everyone is eligible to get the minimum $8.50 an hour.

"We heard that the minimum wage was too low and that the two-tiered rate was unfair," says Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik in a press announcement.

Normally a minimum wage boost in southern provinces brings screams of indignation from business groups and individual business owners.

But it's business as usual in Nunavut.

Wages in the North are higher because of the cost of living.

"Does anyone in Iqaluit pay the minimum?" suggests Russell Halley, manager of the Subway/Mary Brown's Chicken fast food outlet.

Fast food restaurants traditionally pay the lowest level of wages, but someone who's a teen and fresh off the street would start at about $10-$11 an hour, Halley says.

"The minimum wage would have to go much higher before it would make a difference here," he says of the effect to business bottom lines.When minimum wage rates rose to $6 an hour from $5.50 in Newfoundland, businesses felt it right away.

"It affected a lot of businesses," Halley says, remembering his experiences operating two Mary Brown's Chicken franchises there.