News release

February 19, 2003

Federal Budget raises spectre of new cutbacks to Public Service

Ottawa — The PSAC welcomes the increased federal commitment to health and social spending in the 2003 Federal budget. Despite this announced new spending, the federal government appears poised to cut public services offered to Canadians in a number of important areas, according to the the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Canada’s largest federal public sector Union.

"Under the guise of accountability, Federal Finance Minister John Manley is planning a billion dollar worth of public service reduction every year in the next five years," said PSAC National President Nycole Turmel. "Today’s announcement of a program review is built on the same flawed logic behind the program cuts of the mid-1990s. The cuts were disastrous for public services and for the federal public workers in the 1990’s and will be equally disasterous in the first decade of the new century."

However, the union acknowledges that parts of the budget are a step in the right direction. Turmel said she was happy to see the government’s increased spending for the Coast Guard, border crossings, national parks, defence, cleaning up federal contaminated sites, food inspection. The increases to health care, child care, Aboriginal initiatives, support for persons with disabilities and other much-needed social programs to reduce poverty and improve social safety and security of Canadians are also positive highlights of the budget.

She added that the Canadian Armed Forces are in dire need of the $270 million additional money for urgent needs and of the $800 million new funding for 2003-2004.

"But we deplore the fact that much of this so-called new money will come from internal savings in government operations. Even the increase in Defence spending is being paid, in part, out of internally genereated savings within the Department." Turmel said. "We are afraid this may mean that some civilian employees will lose their jobs in order to finance new capital expenditures on equipment and infrastructure."

The bottom line, Turmel pointed out, is that the budget will mean job insecurity for public sector workers and increased privatization of public services.

"Manley announced that federal departments will be asked to demonstrate results and be challenged to find new approaches to service delivery," said Tumel. "In the past this has translated to job cuts, increased workload for workers and contracting out of more public sector services to profit-seeking corporations."

For information:
Muriel Anderson, President, PSAC Local 70125
(613) 297-7325

04-060203