This text is part of the special Syndicalism booklet
Fearing a new budgetary rigor following the next Quebec budget, the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) is calling for investments in public services and the establishment of comprehensive and sustainable policies.
“Our first concern would be to have to return to a situation that would resemble austerity. What makes us fear [une telle chose]it’s debt management,” CSN President Caroline Senneville states straight away.
“And often, we say it’s for people’s future. But what future will they have if we are not able to catch up on the academic delay induced by the pandemic? Young people, if they live in unsanitary or overcrowded housing? If they do not have access to specialized services? asks the one who believes that we must improve current conditions to look to the future.
In February, the Legault government announced that it would present a budget in March aimed at curbing inflation, which is higher than its forecasts made last fall. The Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, had then said to expect a price increase of 4% for the current year instead of the 3% originally projected.
For the president of the CSN, the fight against the rise in the cost of living should not be done by lowering taxes, but by raising wages. “It goes through a bigger minimum wage on which the government will be able to levy taxes and duties,” she said. According to her, a tax cut would rather have the effect of further reducing public services. “And if you ask someone who is waiting for chemotherapy treatments if they prefer that or to be able to have surgery, you have the answer,” she argues.
The CSN is therefore calling for a minimum wage of $18 an hour, which, in its view, would ensure that taxpayers can meet all their housing, food and health needs. “It’s an income that allows people to live with dignity”, summarizes Mme Senneville.
Lessons to be learned from the pandemic
According to the president of the CSN, the pandemic has highlighted the fact that Quebec was not prepared for such a crisis. “It is in the mission of governments to ensure that we are ready to face larger crises,” she said. She cites as an example the floods and forest fires that have ravaged other regions elsewhere in Canada.
And the various cuts to public services over the years haven’t helped, she says. “We were told it was too expensive, we only saw them as an expense. And we realized that public services are a cog in the economy in the same way as SMEs, large companies and services that are not public,” she insists.
Thus, it is calling on Quebec to reinvest in these infrastructures. “We’ve been saying it for decades, but I think the pandemic has demonstrated it. When public services do not work well, the whole society and the whole economy of Quebec suffer,” she illustrates.
Mme Senneville also argues that, in its budget, the Quebec government will have “a lot of catching up to do”, particularly in the health systems. “There were a lot of load shedding. We are short of manpower, we cannot afford to keep people at home waiting for an operation, ”she said.
She also highlights the effects of the pandemic on the psychological health of young people and on their academic success. For her, it is not enough to respond to these issues when they arise, but also to establish global public policies that will last, because all sectors are interrelated.
“There are employers who are struggling to find employees in Montreal because people don’t want to come. They say to themselves: if I accept a position in Montreal, either I’ll have trouble finding accommodation, or I’ll have to go so far that I’ll spend a lot of time commuting. She stresses the importance of a global vision to deal with this type of issue. “Because when you deal with problems only when they emerge, you don’t solve them at the source,” she insists.
“Governing is not just responding to crises. It’s having a longer-term vision that will take into account all the elements, she concludes. And if we want the economy to work, public services must work. »