Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

OTTAWA – Conservative ideology has triumphed over the needs of Canadians in the latest federal budget according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

“This budget is a medley of misguided priorities,” says PSAC National President John Gordon. “The Harper government’s obsession with deficit reduction continues unabated with more than $10 billion going to pay down the debt this year, money that should have been invested in Canadians.”

“Continued debt reduction at a time when Canada may be facing an economic slowdown is not sound economic policy. Conservatives have once again missed an opportunity to use the surplus to invest in the health and well-being of Canadians through a national pharmacare or child care and early learning program or a comprehensive environmental protection plan.”

(more…)

On February 26 the Harper government will present its 2008 federal budget, making choices that directly affect the quality of our lives.

Up to now, this government’s budget choices have been very bad for many Canadians. Their tax cuts and overly aggressive debt repayment have reduced the level of public services that Canadians need and expect. Adequate responses to climate change, affordable housing, child-care, post secondary education, accessible health care, equality for women, minorities and aboriginal Canadians cannot be financed by their tax cuts and near-obsession with debt repayment.

Canadian families are working 200 more hours a year on average than only 10 years ago. Eighty percent (80%) of Canadian families are taking home a smaller share of the economic pie than families did a generation ago. Corporate profit is at a 40-year high, but that wealth is not being shared.

For these reasons and many more Canadians need to seriously reflect on the choices that the Harper government will make in the latest federal budget.

There is an alternative: A budget you can count on

Each year the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives consults with a wide range of community groups, unions and others to create an Alternative Federal Budget.

Its recommendations are analyzed and costed by economists who are as equally well respected as those the government depends on. They simply have different views about how the economy can help Canadians and how different choices are possible and preferable.

When the latest federal budget is released on February 26, you decide whether the choices the Harper government has made will really benefit Canadians.

Read more, including the complete alternative federal budget, at the national website.

OTTAWA – Conservatives are not the good fiscal managers they would like the country to believe and there is plenty of evidence to prove it. According to John Gordon, National President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Conservative budgets have been contributing to a growing gap between rich and poor Canadians.

“Why is it that, in spite of continued economic growth, poverty is still on the rise in Canada,” says Gordon. “Nearly one in six Canadian children live in poverty; one in four in First Nations communities. Our social safety net is disappearing and economic disparity and social exclusion are deepening.”

Since their election, Conservative budgets have been designed to provide a few ‘goodies’, such as the GST reduction and the taxable child care allowance, that are of little real benefit to individuals but advance the government’s agenda of undermining publicly funded services and reducing their role in meeting Canadians’ priorities. The money lost by reducing the GST by just 1% could have financed a universal early learning and child care system for three to five-year olds across the country.

At the same time the Harper government has been devoting large surpluses to debt repayment, they’ve been cutting social programs. Debt reduction will be cold comfort to the working families affected by the impending economic slowdown and who are even now living from pay cheque to pay cheque. Nor will it help new immigrants already clustered in low-wage, no benefits, precarious work.

(more…)

OTTAWA – In spite of its claims, the latest Conservative budget is not going to make Canada better or safer, nor will it make it fairer, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

“The federal budget proposes to establish a $25-million office to foster public-private partnerships (P3s), when what Canadians need and deserve are quality public services that are publicly funded and delivered,” says PSAC National President John Gordon.

The budget calls for $1.26 billion over 7 years in a national fund for unspecified public-private partnerships, as well as $2.1 billion for gateways and border crossings, including the new Windsor-Detroit access which is already earmarked as a P3 initiative.

“Despite the Conservative budget’s praise for P3s in other countries, experience actually shows that public-private partnerships are less accountable and produce higher long-term costs,” says Gordon. “If our tax dollars are paying for this country’s infrastructure, then we should own it. P3s are simply a way to guarantee corporate profits at taxpayers’ expense.”

|inline

I want to start by thanking you for providing me with an opportunity to participate in your pre-budget consultation.

I do so on behalf of more than 160,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the union representing the vast majority of Canadian workers employed by the federal government and its various departments and agencies.

In this short statement, I want to make a case for renewal of public services, public service delivery and public infrastructure.

• Have your say on the budget!

But first, I want to make a couple of comments on the revenue side of the equation.  From my perspective there is both good news and bad news on the fiscal front since your government was elected a little over a year ago. I believe that your decision to reduce revenue by almost $5 billion by cutting the GST was a mistake. On the other side of the coin, I would like to commend you for taking action last fall on the income trust file because failure to act would have continued and increased the leakage from the tax system putting even further pressure on your governments ability to deliver service to Canadians.

Clearly, budgets are about priorities. And in looking forward to your 2007 budget, I can’t help but look at the past and your government’s September 25, 2006 announcement of a 1 billion dollar reduction in government expenditures.

Not all cuts are created equally, and I would urge you to take a second look at the 2006 cuts that undermine equally and use your budget to, in the words of the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality “Put Equality Back on Track”.

That means restoring operational funding for Status of Women Canada, and restoring funding for the Court Challenges program and the Law Reform Commission.

It means putting literacy back on the priority list, and investing more resources, not less to level the playing field for aboriginal peoples.

|inline

Tuesday, February 20 is BC Budget Day. The Campbell government began this year by cutting the child care budget. Any announcements they make now will likely be one-time only, stopgap funding that does not even begin to fix the child care problems they’ve caused.

British Columbians are urged to flood the Campbell government with a strong message – restore child care funding and build a child care system!

Please take a moment to fax:

• Premier Gordon Campbell at 250-387-0087
• Minister of Finance Carole Taylor at 250-387-5594
• Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid at 250-356-8337

Download the fax form here (pdf), and please send a copy of your message to your Liberal MLA. Click for MLA fax numbers.

Working families in every BC community need child care. The provincial government’s funding cuts and attacks on child care programs affects us all, but especially children in BC. By cutting child care funding again, the Campbell government has shown it doesn’t care about the future of our children or working families.

The Federal Government Department of Finance has launched an online pre-budget consultation to give Canadians a chance to have input to the development of the 2007 Federal Budget. Last year they reported receiving 6000 responses to their online consultation process.

The government online consultation is a bit restrictive in the choices it offers but you can select ‘Spending’ as your top priority. In the box for comments write in your own words about the need to continue delivering quality public services to Canadians.

• PSAC Labour Day message: Defend Quality Public Services

Now is your chance to send a message to the government! Click to visit the the Department of Finance website and have your say. Note that the closing date for this consultation is February 28^th.

Ottawa: FAFIA, a pan-Canadian alliance of women’s and human rights organizations, is denouncing the $5 million cut to the federal department of Status of Women over two years. These cuts will be taken from its modest annual budget of $13 million. The grants and contributions arm ($11 million) of the department was not affected.

“These cuts will critically affect the federal government’s own capacity to live up to its equality commitments to women,” said Shelagh Day, Co-Chair of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA).

FAFIA is also dismayed by the elimination of the Court Challenges Program. “This Program has provided women in Canada with their only access to the use of their constitutional equality rights,” said Shelagh Day. “Equality rights have no meaning in Canada if women, and other Canadians who face discrimination, cannot use them.”

|inline

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, like the rest of the country, is angered by the Conservative government’s September 25th announcement that they are cutting programs and spending, while racking up a record surplus of $13.2 billion. PSAC National President John Gordon indicated that while the union is in the process of analysing the details of the government’s cuts, it does mean bad news for Canadians who depend on social services and a strong public service.

• News: Federal spending cuts attacked @ canada.com

Announcement by announcement, the government is revealing its true agenda, says Gordon. The Conservatives are shedding the moderate image they cultivated during the last election and showing their true colours by eliminating or cutting social programs and programs that support human rights and advance womens equality. Gordon noted that research, literacy and youth programs are also victims of this latest announcement.

|inline

The PSAC Triennial Convention, as the union’s supreme governing body, has established clear priorities for the union for the next three years. In order to meet these priorities, the Convention adopted a progressive budget and resolutions with dues increase that will allow the PSAC to better represent the interests of members, as well as all Canadians, at work and in their communities.

This means there will be an average dues increase of 29 cents per member per month. The actual dues percentage will rise to 0.8963% from the current 0.8889%. This increase will take effect on January 1, 2007.

The Strike Fund

Delegates at the 2003 PSAC Convention increased strike pay from $35 to $50 per day, without an increase in the current Strike Fund dues of 35 cents per member per month. The National Board of Directors also approved to pay the necessary premiums to ensure that the health and dental benefits of our members continue during a strike.

|inline

TORONTO – The Harper government’s first federal budget provides more questions than answers about its impact on services to Canadians, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

In its pre-budget submission, PSAC had argued that demands for public services are growing as the population ages and as more and more people locate to larger cities and communities. The union urged the government to reconsider premature tax cuts.

“In addition to tax cuts, particularly the many corporate tax cuts contained in the budget, the Conservatives are slowing government spending at a time when the economy is growing,” says PSAC National President Nycole Turmel. “They’re also instituting another round of expenditure review, cutting $1-billion in each of the next two fiscal years.”

|inline