The federal government’s 2015 budget puts millions of seniors at risk of poverty, abandons families in need of affordable child care and quality public health care, and fails to create good jobs and spur economic growth while maintaining unreasonably low corporate taxes, and introducing measures that only benefit wealthy families including income splitting and expanded tax-free savings accounts, labour groups claim.

“The Conservatives have chosen irresponsible economic policies that slash revenues to benefit a few corporations and the wealthy,” Paul Moist, national president of Canadian Union of Public Employees, said. “This budget does far more harm than good in addressing the gap between workers and the richest Canadians. With this budget, that gap will only continue to grow.”

Canada’s largest content that increasing the TFSA limit to $10,000 only benefit a privileged few while the lost rest government revenues are going to hurt the majority of Canadians.

“Expanding TFSA does almost nothing to help the over 11 million Canadians without a work place pension. Instead of expanding the Canada Pension Plan – widely seen as the most effective, efficient and affordable way to keep seniors out of poverty – the Conservatives only offer another tax shelter for the rich,” says Moist. “The lost revenues from expanding TFSA’s – at least $1 billion over the next five years – will only mean more pressure on OAS/GIS. This budget is an unqualified failure for the vast majority of Canadian seniors.”

The union claimed that Canadian families struggling to find affordable child care are also left without any help.

“Families are spending more on child care than on housing – up to $2000 a month. This means the tax credit being offered up by Conservatives will barely cover one month. And that will be for only handful of families; most won’t get a dime,” says Moist.

CUPE claims that the Conservative’s lack of leadership on child care is even more pronounced in health care.

Despite long waiting lists, five million Canadians without a family doctor, and skyrocketing prescription drug prices, the 2015 federal budget confirms Conservatives are cutting more than $36 billion from health care, the union points out.

“We need strong federal leadership to strengthen our public health care system,” says Moist. “Our public health care is coming apart at the seams, and Conservatives simply shrug their shoulders hoping someone else will take care of it.”

CUPE is urging the Official Opposition to move budget amendments that will help create quality jobs, make urgent investments in public health care and child care, expand the CPP, and introduce measures that protect valued public services.

“This budget is clearly taking our country in the wrong direction. It fails workers, families, seniors, students, Indigenous peoples and the environment,” says Moist. “The only bright side is that with our pending federal election, this will be the Conservatives last budget. Next budget, we’ll be able to start repairing the damage done. Canadians deserve better.”

Canada’s largest private sector union echoed CUPE’s sentiments accusing Prime Minister Stephen Harper of using a pre-election budget to distract Canadians from the Conservative’s failure to create good jobs and economic growth.

“The Harper Conservatives’ budget is too little, too late,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “Canadians won’t be fooled by the pre-election goodies offered in today’s budget – which will be of little or no help to Canadians struggling to keep up.”

Rather than prioritizing the creation of good jobs, health care, retirement security and the massive infrastructure needs across the country, today’s federal budget confirmed that the Harper Conservatives are out of touch with the needs of working families, contend the union representing 305,000 workers, which was formed Labour Day weekend 2013 when the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions merged.

In response, to the dire state of manufacturing in Canada (which has lost about 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the Harper government was elected), today’s budget made some modest commitments to the sector, including the continued renewal of the “temporary” accelerated capital cost allowance (first introduced in 2007), modest investment in skills and apprentices, and $20 million per year to support innovation in the auto parts sector.

“The measures announced in this pre-election budget to assist manufacturing, just won’t get the job done,” said Dias. “We need a government that will work with industry and labour to create the robust industrial strategy we need to rebuild this vital sector – and that leadership is not coming from Mr. Harper.”

Unifor was also disappointed that today’s budget confirmed the Harper Conservatives’ intention to dramatically reduce health care funding. “With an aging population and a stressed health care system, the Conservatives’ unilateral decision to reduce health care transfers by an estimated $36 billion over the next decade will have terrible consequences including longer wait times, deterioration in quality and cuts to services,” said Dias. “One wonders who this government is representing? Who wants their health care services cut?”

Of further concern to Unifor were the $4.9 billion in tax cuts announced in the current year, which the union says will primarily benefit wealthy Canadians, including the doubling of the Tax Free Savings Account limits.

“More tax cuts are good news for people with lots of money, but they won’t help working families, they won’t help seniors trying to scrape by, and they certainly won’t lead to the creation of good jobs,” said Dias. “Over the last nine years, the Conservatives’ tax cuts haven’t led to the creation of jobs – and they won’t now.”

Despite an increase extending caregiver leave, the budget is still planning for a $3.4 billion operating surplus in the EI fund this year. “This government is raiding the EI fund to pay for its other priorities, even though less than 40% of unemployed Canadians qualify for EI With tens of thousands of Canadians losing their jobs, this is the time to fix EI – not raid the cookie jar,” said Dias.

Unifor also noted that despite recent concern about the Conservatives’ closure of coast guard monitoring stations, concern which escalated after a fuel spill in Vancouver earlier this month, there was not a restoration of the $5.5 million/year required to keep the stations open.

Even the elimination of the deficit is a hollow achievement, Dias noted, since it was based on “a financial shell game” designed to make the budget look stronger than it is.

“The government has shrunk its contingency fund, hurriedly sold off GM shares for inferior prices, and is diverting $3.4 billion of EI surpluses to fund other priorities. Without that financial manipulation, the budget would have a $6 billion deficit, not a $1.4 billion surplus,” said Dias.

“Once again, the Harper Conservatives have demonstrated how far their values and priorities are from those of hard-working Canadians,” said Dias.

[Photo Credit: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr]