The public service is only now recovering from the deep cuts of the Harper era

BY PAUL JUNOR

The Public Service Alliance of Canada responded to the federal budget with specific concerns about looming cuts to public services.

Chrystia Freedland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance states, “What kind of Canada do you want to live in? Do you want to live in a country where the only young Canadians who can buy their own homes are those with parents who can help them with the down-payment? Do you want to live in a country where we make the investments we need: in healthcare, in housing, in old age pensions, but we lack the political will to pay for them?”

MP Gary Anandasangaree in a newsletter to his constituents mentioned some of the features of budget 2024. These include:

Supporting young families

• Delivering $10 a day childcare
• A National School Food Program

Helping young Canadians

• Investing in students
• More youth job opportunities
• A Youth Mental Health Fund

More affordable homes

• Building more homes
• Making it easier to own or rent a home

Stronger universal health care

• Investing in Ontario’s health care system
• Introducing Universal Pharmacare

Supporting seniors

• A stronger more successful retirement
• Aging with dignity

Community building

• Safer and healthier communities

A fair future for Indigenous people

• Closing the infrastructure gap
• Economic reconciliation
• Safe Indigenous communities

National defense

• Our North, strong and free

Tax fairness

• Raising capital gains taxes for the top 0.13%

Generation Squeeze released a statement on its website on Thursday, April 28^th, 2024, in response to the budget. It reads, “The federal budget tabled this week offers a lot to feel hopeful about. Generation Squeeze won’t become obsolete any time soon. It’s momentous for the federal government to organize its spending plans around generational fairness. At the same time, a single budget can’t fix the generational tensions that crept into our economy and policies over decades. The freighter changes course slowly, so we should rejoice when it turns in the right direction.”

Generation Squeeze lists six takeaways from the budget. They include:

• Canada pays more to defend retirement security than border security, housing security, or income security for young people.
• Bad planning by past governments still weighs budgets down today.
• Structural deficits not inflation deficit spending.
• Growing public debt burdens younger and future generation.
• How do we fix the structural problem in ways that are fair for every generation.
• The beginning of the end of intergenerational extraction.

Chris Aylward, National President of PSAC states, “We’re pleased to see measures in the budget that will support the work of more than 34,000 PSAC members working in the post-secondary sector. As Canadians continue to struggle to make ends meet, we need to put workers and their families first by supporting strong, stable public services when they need them most.”

He has reservations about the planned cut of 5,000 federal service workers through attrition. In addition, Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board announced that there will be a reduction of $15 billion in spending in the public sector and there is concern about its impact on his members.

Aylward notes, “The public service is only now recovering from the deep cuts of the Harper era, and as population grows, we need to continue investing in public service to meet the growing needs of Canadians. Investing in public services is the best way to avoid long waits for Canadians at airports and at the border, for passport renewals and employment insurance applications.”