Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As you said, my name is Ian Johnson. I'm a policy analyst and researcher with NSGEU. I'm here on behalf of our president, who was unable to attend the meeting. Our president is Joan Jessome.
I also want to let you know that we're part of the Nova Scotia Post-secondary Education Coalition, of which my colleagues Marc Lamoureux and Kaley Kennedy are also part. There was initially a joint request to appear before you, and then we submitted separately from that.
As a bit of background, our union is the single largest union in the province, representing 24,000 public and private sector employees working in a wide range of workplaces, including education, of course, the provincial civil service, community agencies, correctional services, and liquor stores.
What I'd like to focus on, starting with the main focus of the work of the committee at this point, is that for us the key question is not whether we need taxation or how to reduce taxes, but rather how to ensure that all major public needs are being met and how to fairly distribute the moneys raised by taxes.
Unfortunately, governments seem interested in cutting taxes instead of looking at the needs we should be meeting. Quite seriously, how can we allow growing and unacceptable levels of poverty and income disparity and at the same time talk about cutting taxes? Surely this must be one of the most basic questions we need to address.
In addition, Mr. Chairman, we feel that having a high-quality publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system is vital to the health and well-being of our citizens. Similarly, there should be no doubt about the importance and even the centrality of post-secondary education.
In our view, no discussion of taxation of revenues for this region would be complete without reference to what has happened to the 2005 Atlantic accord. As the government here said—before October, anyway—the federal government had no right to unilaterally break that accord. It is still our view that the federal government must ensure that every dollar guaranteed to us is protected and flows to Nova Scotia as was originally intended.
Also, in September 2006 the Harper government announced that the government had found “a billion dollars in savings in unused funds, non-core programs, efficiency savings, and programs not providing value for money”. However, with those cuts, many important programs were eliminated.
Besides the need for urgent action to address the growing gap in income disparity, there are for us many pressing needs in health and post-secondary education. In health care we see a number of areas where federal leadership is sorely needed. That includes federal leadership on wait time solutions in the public system, using public solutions, Canada Health Act compliance and enforcement, a national pharmacare program, which is really important at this point, health human resources, and aboriginal health and northern needs.
While the value of post-secondary education is not disputed, public funding for post-secondary education has been severely compromised for at least the last decade, certainly in this province. In short, in post-secondary education we see a critical situation developing of limited affordability and accessibility, diminishing teaching and staff resources, and crumbling infrastructure, all leading to a reduced quality of education.
Before my time runs out, I want to highlight a few key recommendations that we've put forward. My colleague has already touched on key ones in post-secondary education, but we strongly urge, through the committee, that the federal government recognize the fundamental need and value of taxes for individual transfers and social programs; that it abandon plans for broad corporate and individual tax cuts in order to help implement and develop a comprehensive poverty-reduction strategy; that it honour the Atlantic accord and stop trying to break it; that it reverse the cuts that took place last year to many important programs, especially in this region; and that the federal government commit itself to taking a leadership role in developing wait time solutions in the public system instead of pursuing care guarantees, to ensure that the Canada Health Act is complied with and enforced, that there is a move to establish a national pharmacare program, a national health human resources strategy, and serious attention to aboriginal health and northern needs.
Mr. Chairman, I would conclude with that, because I know my time is close. I appreciate the chance to appear before you.