(Truro) – Reacting to today’s federal budget, CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh says, “What millions of Canadians who don’t have adequate pensions needed to see in this year’s budget from the Harper Government were real changes to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
“What working families in Nova Scotia really need is better pension income through long overdue reforms to the CPP, something the labour movement has shown is a viable, affordable solution to this problem,” he says.
“Instead we get additional reductions to corporate tax rates, attacks on the unemployed, EI spies and Old Age Security being pushed back by two years,” says Cavanagh.
“The so-called pooled pension plan which is totally voluntary for employers won’t do a thing for workers who are getting ready to retire,” says Cavanagh.
“Canadian families also deserve a national child care program similar to what they have had for years in Quebec. This is also missing in action in this budget,” he says.
Cavanagh says, “Communities continue to struggle with inadequate funding to improve public services, including water and transportation infrastructure. The federal government needs to commit significant increased funding for long-term, predictable public infrastructure spending that is not tied to ideologically-driven public private partnerships, so-called P3s.”
“This is a government – and a budget – that is out of touch with the needs of working people and their families,” he says.