If PSAC were to write the federal budget, it would look a lot like the CCPA’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) for 2023. This progressive take on Canada’s national finances, produced each year in collaboration with labour unions and other partners, offers ambitious, attainable solutions – publicly funded and delivered by public service workers – for a just future in Canada and to reduce our environmental impact on the world. 

In the face of rising calls for austerity and a growing regressive, alt-right movement, the 2023 AFB is an important contribution to the discussion about how progressive movements, including labour, can ensure that people are put before profits and that racial and gender-based human rights, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and social justice are the foundations of all decisions.

Grounded in the understanding that a robust public service is best placed to deliver the programs necessary to ensure a better future for all, the AFB provides:

• Solutions such as significant improvements to EI access, benefits and financing;

• Evidence-guided progress on universal, affordable, public childcare;

• A federal post-secondary act that provides stable funding and real access to quality, public post-secondary education for all that would benefit thousands of PSAC members;

• Attention to income security for all, with urgently needed enhancements for disabled people;

• A commitment to urgent environmental protection and climate change mitigation strategies while ensuring a just transition for workers across the country.
• Measures to ensure that the public service workers who will deliver these programs are paid wages that recognize their contributions and keep up with rising inflation, while stopping the ongoing fire sale of contracting out this work to the lowest-bidding private corporation that reduces the quality of service to Canadians while inevitably costing more.

The 2023 Alternative Federal Budget is worth a read from beginning to end.