With the provincial budget released on Wednesday, there were cheers and boos from all corners of the province, one group that has almost nothing good to say about the budget is the Canadian Union of Public Employees. They had one simple message "the budget was balanced on the backs of working people and public services." I was able to get the president of CUPE Saskatchewan Tom Graham on the phone to explain a little more about the issues he sees with the current budget.

"There are problems with our public services, certainly our education system K-12 the classes are overcrowded, there's less money being spent per child due to cutbacks, mental health they are still not putting enough money into that, senior care we are still struggling to see enough long term care beds, they have actually cut spending to child care."

"Municipalities are hurting ever since they cut the grants in lieu and it's still 10 million dollars less today in revenue sharing then it was 5 years ago so there's all this stuff that needs to get fixed." 

"Saying you balanced the budget may sound good but people are paying a billion dollars more in PST, were paying higher property taxes, more users fees, more fees in school the list goes on and on so its just the wrong time."

"It may be more politically expedient to say look at us we balanced the budget but the role of government is to serve the people and to protect the people not to pretend there's some kind of magic in a balanced budget."

"We're not saying they should just keep piling the debt on but they need to start focusing on the services they are elected to provide and stop getting into these new schemes, these healthcare liens or these public-private partnerships that are the most expensive way to do infrastructure, there are choices they could be making better than this."

"We need to go back to fair taxation as well, I believe the minister made a comment 6 or 7 hundred million dollars were paying less in income tax but doesn't mention that we are paying  a billion more in sales tax so we're actually paying more taxes even though she tries to spin it the other way."

"This is the least fair way to tax people, the poor pays as much as the rich and i think most people believe the rich can pay a little more than the poor, so that is where we are at, it is about our members  no doubt about it, I'm not trying to pretend it isn't but its also about public services and this is not fixing anything."

"Our members are just citizens and residents of Saskatchewan they want to make a decent living and see the province flourish, sometimes there's ups and downs but the government can weather them easier then the individual so its time to actually balance it in fairness for people not just for some numbers game that we are playing because that's all it is at the end of the day."