Harper: Killing the middle class one cut at a time.

PS jobs disappearing faster than expected, report says

Canada’s Conservative government has wiped nearly 37,000 people off the federal payroll and reduced key services for Canada’s veterans and the unemployed and budgets for food safety in the “rush” to pay for its promised tax cuts, according to a new report.

The report, by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, concludes that the Conservatives are able to realize their promised surplus and tax breaks at the expense of front-line services, corroded by steady spending cuts that will continue for another two years — even after the books have been balanced.

“Those cuts to services aren’t being reversed. There are no plans to bring back any of those services,” said David Macdonald, senior economist at the CCPA.

“Instead those cut services are paying for the tax package announced last week. The surplus was made possible by those substantial cuts.”

Macdonald said the cuts appear to have been rolled out faster than expected. An analysis of departments’ reports on plans and priorities show they expected to shed 28,600 positions — or full-time equivalents — between 2012 and 2016.

But Statistics Canada’s monthly employment and payroll reports show nearly 37,000 people have already lost jobs. Macdonald argued that means the number of people working for government has fallen by eight per cent — compared to the 4.5 per cent the government estimated in the 2012 austerity budget.

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