In this letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, CUPE Local 79 President Tim Maguire names Budget 2012 for what it is: a path for deregulation, privatization, contracting out, outsourcing and foreign ownership of our resources.

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Block, 80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister:

The 2012 Federal budget fails Canadians, young and old. The unemployment line-ups just got longer, the jobs fewer, the environment weaker and society meaner.

I am writing to you on behalf of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79, the largest municipal local union in Canada, representing more than 20,000 workers at the City of Toronto, Bridgepoint Hospital and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. CUPE Local 79 members provide valuable and needed services to the people of Toronto, in good times and in bad. Prime Minister Harper, this budget guarantees continued hardship and bad times for Canadians across the country.

This budget is a set-up – a trap. It paves the way for deregulation, privatization, contracting out good jobs, outsourcing jobs and foreign ownership of our resources. There is nothing in this budget for the future of our country.

It has been the hallmark your government to divide, to polarize, to pit people and provinces against each other, to tear down. At a time when Canada needs to recover from massive job losses and the global recession, the 2012 Federal budget targets 19,200 public service jobs for direct elimination, with the spin off effect being closer to 60,000 jobs lost in both the public and private sectors.

This is not job creation, leaving no prospect for economic growth — only cuts. Cutting corporate taxes, year in year out, has only proved the case that tax cuts don’t create jobs, yet this budget continues to reward the corporate sector with tax cuts and tax loopholes.

And how has your Government rewarded the workers who have built this country, paid taxes and paid into the Canada Pension Plan to secure dignity in their retirement? You propose to delay the eligibility period for Old Age Security (OAS) until people reach 67 years of age, forcing people to work longer. This will only make the line-ups of unemployed young workers seeking to enter the workforce longer and longer.

As Government you should be the careful stewards of the Canadian economy and the people of this country. Instead of slashing government programs and downsizing the public service you have wasted tens of billions of dollars to buy fighter planes without even checking to see what Canada is getting for the money.

Prime Minister, your Government has been thoroughly discredited, and the Canadian people have no confidence in this budget.

Yours truly,

Tim Maguire
President