The Slash and Burn Blizzard Budget

This article appears in the Winter/Spring edition of the Union Stand.

It was a budget so bad that the PCs chose to introduce it during a blizzard. Perhaps they were hoping people would be so preoccupied with digging out that they wouldn’t notice the deep cuts government planned to make to our public services and community groups.

They also decided – for only the fourth time in 40 years – to table their budget on the opening day of the Spring sitting of the Legislature, which meant the contents of the budget only started trickling out publicly after 4 p.m., so they could escape the brunt of the news cycle for that day.
This slash-and-burn budget contains enormous cuts to the public sector: an estimated 443 FTE from the civil service alone, as well as $130 million in cuts to grants-based programs, which many of our members help deliver in the community-based sector.

The union was quick to speak out, releasing a statement from President Sandra Mullen defending our civil service:

“We know that the unionized civil service has grown by approximately four per cent since 2018, while our population has grown by 14 per cent over that same eight-year period: an effective cut. If (Houston) cuts another five per cent per year for four years, the public services we all rely on will be devastated.”

What is becoming progressively clearer as details emerge is that most MLAs have no clear sense of what these cuts mean to their community, nor can they explain the rationale behind them.

In the days leading up to the budget, we learned that 77 members would be losing their jobs, including 30 members who would be affected by the closure of our Visitor Information Centres, and another 10 staff working at three museums government had decided to shutter.
The union is still waiting to learn which members will be directly impacted by the full extent of the budget cuts, but so far, it appears the following departments that will be hardest hit in terms of loss in Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions are:

Opportunities & Social Development: -112.0 FTE
Justice: -109.1 FTE
Service NS: -68.0 FTE
Environment/Climate Change: -56.5 FTE
Natural Resources: -52.0 FTE

One thing is clear, though: Houston’s plan to bury their budget in a blizzard hasn’t worked. Citizens from throughout the province have taken notice of these deep cuts, and are pushing back.

The Premier was met with an emphatic chorus of booing at the African Heritage Gala a few days after the budget was tabled, and hundreds of Nova Scotians took to the streets around the Legislature during a series of rallies to push back against the regressive cuts to our services and social programs. Thousands more have written and called their MLA to have their voices heard.

While government cries poor, people clearly understand that these cuts are the result of choices these officials have made: choices to forego more than $400 million in revenue annually that result from Houston’s election promises of reducing the HST and removing tolls from the bridges.

At the same time, while this budget eviscerates many department budgets, it contains plenty of money to support private industry to exploit the province’s natural resources, while cutting climate change resources, sustainability and applied sciences, and introducing a new tax for hybrid and electric vehicle users.

Of note, only the Departments of Health & Wellness and Energy – the portfolio the Premier appointed himself to – received increases in staffing complements.

“The Premier seems to be solely focused on resource extraction, but has lost sight of the fact that Nova Scotians rely on much more than that,” Mullen said.

The union remains committed to fighting the regressive cuts contained in this budget, and to enforce the strong job protection language in the civil service master agreement.