CUPE has released its submission ahead of the 2025 federal budget, calling on the government to strengthen public services, and build a fairer, more sustainable economy that prioritizes people, not corporations.
Canadian jobs and public services are under threat by Donald Trump’s economic sabotage. Now is not the time for Prime Minister Mark Carney to pile on with a 15% across-the-board budget cut that would erode our vital public services and devastate our communities.
Instead, CUPE is urging Carney to make badly needed investments in health care, housing, social services, and infrastructure to help Trump-proof our economy and support our communities for the long-haul.
Key recommendations include:
- Cancel the cuts: rescind the 15% austerity plan that would gut public services and kill tens of thousands of good-paying jobs across Canada.
- Strengthen health care: increase federal transfers, enforce the Canada Health Act, finalize pharmacare, and pass the long-awaited Safe Long-term Care Act.
- Tackle the housing crisis: build public and non-profit housing, protect affordable rentals, and address out-of-control corporate financialization of housing.
- Support workers: reform Employment Insurance, strengthen supports for migrant workers, and expand the Canada Disability Benefit.
- Invest in families: expand funding for child care, and prioritize non-profit centres.
- Tax fairness: restore corporate tax rates to 21%, implement a wealth tax, and close loopholes to ensure the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.
- Build green public infrastructure: expand public transit, energy grids, and social infrastructure through public investment – not as a slush fund for private firms to enrich wealthy investors.
- Protect workers’ rights: update the Canada Labour Code to ban unpaid work in the airline sector, and stop government interference in collective bargaining.
- End complicity in war crimes: implement an immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel and withdraw from the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement.