To the editor:

As it saddens me to read last week鈥檚 letter of the week [No Business Without Minimum Wage Earners, April 15 琉璃神社]; I might add this note to the writer: It seams he thinks that retailers are just reaping in huge profits, while paying the part-time employees minimum wages.

As he notes: 鈥淎verage pay for highest CEO in 2009 was $66 million.鈥� Is this guy on a high himself? Most CEOs earn their worth, albeit not all do; however, your figures of pay stats are so out to lunch, leaves me to think you must be an overpaid union employee that would never be an entrepreneur investing his own monies into retail, because you wouldn鈥檛 have a clue as to how to make it work, how to make money, how to finance your business.

What you should do is buy out the foreign investors and begin paying all your employees top wages, all benefits, extra vacations and see if you know how to make money.

If we take away all the foreign investment companies from Canada, well guess what you鈥檒l be left with? A donut franchise (now owned south of the border), and your local grocery independents. Where are you going to buy your car, TV, fresh produce, airliners that you might use for a vacation, the trucks that haul everything you consume, your microwave, cell phone, Internet information, your GPS, motorcycle, RV, ATV, and all the hospital OR equipment that we all take for granted.

Yes, let鈥檚 pay double minimum wage to those of you who have probably never owned a business and worked 80 hours a week as I did, just to keep it alive.

Please respect our minimum wage earners as they gain valuable experience for their benefit going into the future. But unless you invest in a retail business yourself and do pay all these extras, please don鈥檛 judge retailers. They all struggle to just survive. I know, I have been that person more than once.

Denis Mondor, 琉璃神社