It’s getting hard to find wage slaves in Canada, people who are willing to live badly on paltry pay.

That was one of the unstated reasons behind the decision of Nova Scotia retailers to close their shops on Boxing Day, and give workers a two-day break from tough jobs.

The December 26 closure was a Christmas gift, of sorts. But a year-round wage hike would be a better present than this once-a-year unpaid holiday.

Higher wages would keep people working here in retail land — instead of heading west to Alberta.

Who knows? A fairer deal for workers may even prove to be a better solution than hand-wringing.

In Nova Scotia, the minimum wage is $7.15 an hour.

And you don’t have to consult a guru at the Harvard School of Business to figure out you can’t live — or love — on the annual salary that spins off this dizzying figure.

In fact, you can get financial vertigo just thinking about it.

This is particularly true given the changing composition of Canadian households. More of us are now choosing, or being forced, to live alone. That can mean one meagre salary to support a household.

I’m surprised Canada’s business lobbyists haven’t latched on to this issue, in fact.

These guys love preaching about the remorseless logic of the marketplace — how it drives large international companies to invest in Timbuktu instead of Timberlea.

Well, guess who is mobile now, big guy?

And what is that sacred thing called “the market” now dictating, if not higher wages for those who dig in Canada’s work trenches?

Manpower International Inc. figured this out by conducting a survey earlier this year on worker shortages.

Here’s what it found: about two-thirds of Canada’s employers are having a hard time finding good people — whether they need cooks or labourers, engineers or electricians.

No wonder the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council reported earlier this month that thousands of Atlantic Canadians are fleeing the wage ghettoes of this region.

They’re headed west for the promised lands of the Great Plains — where money sprouts from the barrens and oil oozes its greasy promise.

In short, labour markets are changing before our eyes. What better time, then, to take a look at some basic principles?

Here’s one: If you work fulltime in Canada, this alone should keep you out of poverty.

I know what you’re thinking. This idea — a “living wage” — sounds dangerous.

“How will we ever compete against the Mexicans?” the neo-cons will ask. To which labour should reply: “Suck it up, buddy.”

I even found this “living wage” proposition wrapped up in some new language in a report tabled in the House of Commons last month.

I’m usually wary of Parliamentary reports, because they almost always have long titles that slow down the narrative.

So I’ll only say that this one was written by law professor Harry Arthurs, who seems to think the Canada Labour Code should be updated after 40 years of sitting virtually unchanged.

Arthurs recommends something Canada doesn’t have — a national minimum wage, one which would bring a full-time worker up to the poverty line.

He doesn’t say what this wage should be, but others crunched the numbers and figured it would be around $10 an hour.

Unfortunately, Nova Scotia has its share of small business owners — hoteliers, food franchisees, and so on — who are eager to tell you they can’t afford this.

To which I say: “Adapt.”

The good news is that your competitors are rowing furiously forward in the same dory.

And they too are caught in the same tricky market currents that may yet force fast food joints to fork out enough pay to lift their workers — barely — out of poverty.

Here’s another thing.

In the recent U.S. elections, voters in the six states with minimum wage measures on the ballots passed every one of them. (The American federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour has not been changed since 1997.)

In short, the relentless rules of commerce, and the forces of democracy, are now on the side of ordinary working stiffs.

Besides, who wants to live in a country where the woman flipping your burger at Harvey’s couldn’t afford to feed her kids a decent Christmas meal?

Not me, I’ll tell you.

And not you either, I’d bet.