Tipping 'Culture' in Canada

           This article threw me off, and more recently this one. They both presuppose that tipping is a standard practice and even required across Canada. This is not at all the case. In the part of Western Canada I'm from, tipping is still seen as a slimy way that an employer is getting out of paying their staff fairly. 

In most circumstances, lots of us that live out here don't even see the prompt any more. We are well practiced at skipping right over it. Whether or not we tip is largely based on what we can afford and if the service was better than expected.

We've even had advocacy groups lobbying government to improve server wage minimums to make them match everyone else. Tipping culture in the eastern part of my country must be contributing to the high cost of living out there. By no means has tipping become entrenched in our society. Nor should it. 

What should become entrenched is that people deserve to be paid a living wage. Minimum wage was never meant to become 'wage'. It was meant to be a starting place for someone needing to gain work experience. The standard of care needs to return.

P.S. Tipping at places were you are not receiving a service is ridiculous. Tipping somewhere you do receive a service but you know the staff a re well-paid, such as your mechanic isn't necessary at all. In these places the machine only has tip prompts because the companies providing the machines charge to remove it.