{"id":355702,"date":"2025-11-04T19:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355702\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T19:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T19:31:12","slug":"public-service-unions-brace-for-cuts-in-federal-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355702\/","title":{"rendered":"Public service unions brace for cuts in federal budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal public sector unions say they\u2019re preparing for deep cuts to come out of Tuesday\u2019s federal budget.<\/p>\n

Since the federal election earlier this year, the Mark Carney government has aimed to \u201cspend less, invest more<\/a>” by reining in spending on day-to-day government work to funnel money into other priorities. <\/p>\n

Some of Canada’s nearly 360,000 federal public service employees \u2014 more than 40 per cent of them in the Ottawa-Gatineau area \u2014 are hearing that phrase as a warning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have grave concerns with the things I’ve been seeing over the last couple of weeks about the cuts of the public service and what effects that will have on Canadians,\u201d said Sean O\u2019Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), which represents 75,000 federal public servants.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly told CBC News he\u2019s worried the government is looking too heavily at outsourcing and workforce adjustment, \u201cwhich for us means cuts.\u201d <\/p>\n

WATCH | Government will make ‘workforce adjustments’ in a ‘smart way’: finance minister:<\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

Government will make ‘workforce adjustments’ in a ‘smart way’: finance minister<\/p>\n

Ahead of next week’s federal budget, Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne says the government has been fair and balanced in making \u2018tough choices\u2019 around cuts to civil service.<\/p>\n

Scaling back public service spending was promised in the last<\/a> two<\/a> budgets of the previous Justin Trudeau government.<\/p>\n

In April 2024, it promised to cut 5,000 public service jobs over five years. The government then shed 10,000 in just one year for about a three per cent reduction.<\/p>\n

Carney and Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne asked cabinet this summer<\/a> to reduce program spending by 7.5 per cent in the fiscal year that begins this coming April, followed by 10 per cent\u00a0the year after and 15 per cent in 2028-29.<\/p>\n

Champagne described the budget as a \u201cgenerational investment\u201d that will focus on national priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians have asked us to build big bold things,\u201d he told reporters Monday. \u201cWe’re going to do the kind of things that will make this country stronger and everyone will see themselves in that budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s budget speech at the University of Ottawa<\/a> late last month, he said his government will balance the deficit by \u201creducing wasteful government spending and doing more with less.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly said he\u2019s concerned doing more with less will directly impact the quality of services Canadians depend on.<\/p>\n

The contractor question<\/p>\n

The president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, which represents 25,000 federal public service workers, told CBC News that \u201cCanadians have been lied to over and over again that the public service is bloated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan Prier said the opposite is true.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there’s a big deficit right now, it’s because big program promises get made to Canadians without squaring how they’re going to pay for it,\u201d said Prier. <\/p>\n

\u201c[It’s] not because of the money that they’re spending on the people working to deliver those programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prier said he\u2019s concerned the government will outsource public sector work to private contractors \u2014 something he said the federal government did earlier this year.<\/p>\n

CBC News chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton hosts special coverage of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget, on CBC-TV and CBC News Network at 3 p.m. ET. \u00a0<\/strong>Power & Politics<\/strong>\u00a0will provide further analysis on CBC News Network at 5 p.m. ET.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On radio,<\/strong>\u00a0Your World Tonight<\/strong>‘s Susan Bonner and Catherine Cullen of<\/strong>\u00a0The House<\/strong>\u00a0host special coverage beginning at 4 p.m. ET on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coverage will also stream live on CBC Gem, the CBC News App and on the CBC News YouTube (3 to 7 p.m. ET) and TikTok (3 to 5 p.m. ET) channels.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Genevi\u00e8ve Tellier, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, said the government has been trying to sell two messages at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, they\u2019re talking about sacrifices \u2026 people working in the public sector and the federal government, some may lose their job,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the other hand, [the government] is talking about a transformational budget, heavy investment in different key areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis country desperately needs a strong federal government making crisp decisions based on evidence. And that’s what our members do, they deliver evidence based decision making options to decision makers,\u201d said Prier.<\/p>\n

Until the budget is made public after 4 p.m., it is not known what sorts of cuts or investments will be coming, but both unions say savings are possible \u2014 just not where politicians are looking for them.<\/p>\n

Prier says the government could look to reduce \u201cmanagement bloat,\u201d \u201creliance on contractors,\u201d and to \u201cdownsize our real estate footprint and let workers that really don’t need to be in an office work from home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a terrible time to lose a skilled, knowledgeable workforce,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal public sector unions say they\u2019re preparing for deep cuts to come out of Tuesday\u2019s federal budget. Since…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-355702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115493095557452861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}