Thank you. My name is Toby Sanger. I'm an economist for CUPE.
CUPE represents more than 600,000 members who work on the front lines to deliver quality public services in thousands of communities all across Canada.
The average annual salary for CUPE members is about $40,000, close to the Canadian average. The average pension, for those who have it, is about $17,000. It's hardly gold-plated.
Public services are important for our members, not just because they take pride in providing them but also because they depend on quality public services for their quality of life.
Unfortunately, we are now in a situation in which federal and provincial governments claim that we need to cut public services, lay off workers, and reduce wages and benefits for fiscal and economic reasons. We know this isn't true.
Canada's economy is growing much more slowly than it should. GDP is expected to grow at barely 2% this year and in the next four years. This is half the rate of previous recoveries. Job growth is expected to remain slow and unemployment to remain high.
None of this is necessary.
Austerity measures are slowing down the economy and increasing unemployment around the world. Even the IMF and the OECD are now telling governments to slow down on spending cuts because of the damaging economic impacts.
Canada is in an increasingly fragile economic situation for two reasons.
Unlike other countries, we haven't had a housing price correction. A housing price bust could easily drag our economy back into recession. Canada avoided a deep housing bust like that of the U.S. thanks in part to our publicly run mortgage insurer, CMHC. Privatizing the CMHC, as the finance minister is allegedly planning, would be folly.
The other major threat arises if the United States proceeds with deep spending cuts and goes off a fiscal cliff early next year. This would cause another recession in the United States and likely one in Canada as well.
Canadian corporations have more than half a trillion dollars in dead money that they aren't investing. With public spending cuts and slow wage and job growth, the demand isn't there. It's simple economics, and no amount of urging by the finance minister will change that.
High rates of inequality helped cause the financial crisis and are holding back the recovery. It's not just us saying this anymore; it's the IMF, the OECD, and even the Conference Board.
Then how can we achieve sustained economic growth? It's not that complicated. We need to increase public investment and create jobs.
The federal government needs to maintain and expand public services and launch a major public investment program to create jobs, increase long-term productivity, stimulate economic growth, and address social and environmental goals.
The budget must include a program of long-term funding for public infrastructure with the provinces and municipalities in order to meet existing and emerging needs. Incentives and requirements to engage in public-private partnerships should be eliminated, as these just increase costs for future taxpayers and generations.
The budget should also include investments in affordable housing, public transit, and affordable child care, and should include a national energy retrofit program.
Public service cuts in recent budgets have led to damaging human and economic costs, reducing services for Canadians, and they are fiscally unnecessary. As the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently reported, the federal government is now in a $25 billion structural surplus. We could also raise another $25 billion through some fair tax measures.
We also need to support wage and income growth. Canadian workers and families are in an increasingly precarious financial situation. Household debt ratios are at record levels because wages haven't kept pace with the cost of living.
Measures in the last budget requiring EI claimants to accept lower and lower-paid jobs, allowing businesses to import and exploit thousands of temporary foreign workers at lower wages, and requiring seniors to work longer to receive—