Mr. Speaker, for decades, governments in this country have chipped away at the public service. When the Liberals came to power, they ran on not cutting jobs of hard-working public servants who provide these services, and yet that is exactly what they are doing across the country right now.
This is about having a government that works for the people they represent. This is about whether Canadians can actually get the help that they need and access the services that they depend upon. Right now, they cannot. In my office in Edmonton Strathcona, my excellent, dedicated staff are overwhelmed, not because they are inefficient but because the system is so broken.
This is what underfunding looks like. It means a worker who lost their job cannot access EI and is facing eviction. It means a senior who applied for OAS months ago still has not received their OAS and cannot pay for groceries because their benefits have not arrived. It means that a parent loses the Canada child benefit and waits half a year for it to be fixed. These are not isolated stories. This is the daily reality for Canadians.
Instead of fixing this problem, the government is making it worse. Tens of thousands of public service workers are being cut. That means that there are fewer people to answer the phones, process the applications and fix the mistakes when the system gets it wrong. Therefore, wait times will get longer, errors will increase and Canadians will fall through the cracks.
Cuts to food inspection mean greater risk of contaminated food reaching family dinner tables. Cuts to environmental oversight mean less protection for the air we breathe and the water we drink. Cuts to indigenous services mean fewer supports for communities that already face systemic barriers. Cuts to science mean decisions made with less evidence and more guesswork. At a time when Canadians are struggling with the cost of living, the government is making it harder for them to access the very services they depend on.
Now, the government is saying that AI will fix it, that artificial intelligence is the solution. However, Canadians do not need a chatbot when they are about to be evicted. They do not need an automated response when their benefits are being denied. They do not need an algorithm deciding their future without accountability. They need a human being who will listen, who will understand and who will fix their problems.
AI makes mistakes, and when government systems make mistakes, Canadians pay the price through missed payments, lost benefits, delayed care and real harm. This is not innovation. This is downloading risk onto the people who can least afford it. They are seniors, people living with disabilities and families already stretched to the limit.
Canadians are not asking for less government. They are asking for a government that works; a government that delivers benefits on time; and a government that sees them, hears them and helps them when they need it the most. Right now, they are not getting that and these cuts are only making it worse.
We need to reverse the cuts. We need to stop the layoffs of the very people Canadians are relying upon. We need to invest in the public service so that benefits are delivered on time, calls are answered and mistakes are fixed quickly. We need to halt the reckless replacement of human services with unproven AI systems and we need to commit to building a system that is accessible to everyone. Canadians deserve that from their government.