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CUPE is calling on the British Columbia government to reconsider its current economic course, or risk triggering an avalanche of economic ruin and devastated lives.

CUPE BC president Barry O’Neill says the government’s freeze on health and education spending combined with its plan to cut government services by a third “will not only reduce our quality of life, it puts the health and well-being of working people and our families in peril.”

Funding freezes and cuts will undermine education, health, safety, and environmental standards.

A frozen education budget is going to come at the expense of those who need our support the most – children with special needs,” says O’Neill. “It will also sentence our children to spending their days in dirty and unhealthy schools. Custodial and maintenance services have already been cut so much in some school districts that teachers have identified this as a health and safety issue.”

CUPE is also calling for renewed funding – not cutbacks and deregulation – for public services such as water quality monitoring.