B.C.’s minimum wage will rise by about 30 cents later this year, Global News has reported.

If true, the move would be unexpected, and mark a departure from a policy decision the Liberal government announced in March 2015. It would also correct a mistake the government made that was uncovered by the Straight only through more than 10 freedom-of-information requests reported on over several months.

In March 2015, Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said there would be a 20-cent increase to the minimum wage, taking it to $10.45 an hour. She also said that B.C. would henceforth implement annual increases to the minimum wage that were pegged to the consumer price index (CPI), an economic indicator similar to inflation.

An increase tied to the CPI would be around 10 cents, a full two-thirds less than what Global is reporting is on the way. If a 30-cent increase is implemented this September, it will take the province’s lowest-income earners to a rate of $10.75 an hour.

In a telephone interview, ministry spokesperson Pavan Bajwa refuted Global’s story.

Bajwa said there was no announcement regarding the minimum wage planned for March 25, as Global has reported. He also insisted he was not aware the ministry had decided on a specific amount for the increase.

However, a statement Bajwa attributed to the minister left plenty of room for Global’s story to largely be proven accurate.

“Given our stronger economic growth, we feel there should be room for a modest incremental adjustment beyond B.C.’s CPI so that all workers can benefit from our success,” it reads. “The scheduled increase based on this year’s B.C. CPI does not reflect the economic circumstances of the province.”

It states the ministry is still “reviewing the minimum wage increase”, and that an announcement will come “this spring”.

That in itself is significant because the March 2015 announcement implied there would be no further reviews of B.C.’s minimum wage, given it was now tied to CPI.

The ministry’s statement claims an increase above the CPI would be related to the province’s “economic growth”. But there is evidence that might not be the truth, or at least not the whole story.

There were mistakes made in how the Ministry of Jobs arrived at an initial rate increase of 20 cents.

One reason the government gave for the new policy was to deliver an element of predictability that business leaders had requested. A second stated reason was to move B.C.’s minimum wage up in its ranking against those of the country’s other 13 provinces and territories.

“We’re not going to be number one in the country by any stretch,” Premier Christy Clark said on CKNW radio on March 17, 2011. “But we’re going to be catching up. We won’t be at the bottom anymore.”

The policies announced in March 2015 meant that would no longer be true.

Just about every province and territory has tied its minimum wage to an economic indicator such as inflation and implements annual increases based on those measures.

That means that when Clark and Bond pegged B.C.’s minimum wage to the CPI after giving it an initial increase of only 20 cents, the policy’s actual effect was to stick B.C. near the very bottom of the country’s lowest wages.

By implementing a 30-cent increase, B.C. would see its minimum wage return to the middle of the country's rankings, according to the federal government’s Labour Program.

This was not a result of bad intentions and Clark was not lying when she said she would see B.C.’s minimum wage rise to the middle of the pack. Hundreds of pages of internal documents obtained through several freedom-of-information requests reveal the whole affair was a mistake, and that there was then a refusal to correct that error.

Here’s how it happened:

In March 2015, the government announced a 20-cent increase based on a confidential cabinet submission that states 20 cents was sufficient to raise B.C.’s minimum to the middle. In June, it learned that 20 cents was not enough to accomplish Clark’s stated goal. Then, in September, it went ahead with the increase as planned, knowing it would not lift B.C.’s rank from below the other provinces.

“We are tenth currently,” wrote Jake Ayers, a senior policy adviser with the B.C. Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, in an emailed dated June 29, 2015. “But when Alberta and NFLD increase in Oct, we will be 12th – except for the fact Sask will also very likely increase past us in Oct – so we will probably be 13th – i.e., last.”

The minster’s assistant deputy, Trevor Hughes, said the same. He sent an email recounting how the B.C. Federation of Labour had warned him B.C.’s minimum wage would rank tenth out of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories. “And I quietly thought we were lower,” Hughes added.

Ayers’s predictions came true. Last October, five provinces raised their minimum wages, resulting in B.C. falling to second-to-last place. Then, in December, New Brunswick announced it would increase its minimum wage to $10.65, dropping B.C.’s to dead last.

Ayers accepted responsibility for the matter in an email sent one week after his warning. “I’ll take the blame for only just discovering this now,” he wrote on July 6.

It appears the provincial government is now moving to correct that mistake.