Ontarians need good jobs, strong public services, and sound economic planning. Yet the province is falling behind on all those fronts. Tariffs cannot be used as a cover for Ontario’s long-standing problems.
Over multiple budget cycles, Ontario has overseen record spending and persistent deficits. Yet these budgets have failed to deliver improved quality of life for workers. Ontarians are experiencing massive layoffs, job losses, declining working conditions, and no meaningful relief from rising costs. Many of today’s crises are the direct result of past budgetary choices.
What our 200,000 members are feeling is echoed across the province. Financial precarity and hardship have become defining features of life in Ontario. Unemployment in Ontario increased to over 7.6%, in October 2025 with most job losses concentrated in the public sector (-16,900) between July and September 2025, which employs one in five Ontarians. These losses are not driven by tariffs, but by chronic underinvestment and deteriorating working conditions.
If the government exists to create good jobs and deliver high quality public services, then this government has missed the mark. This next budget must acknowledge these realities and offer a solution that delivers for working Ontarians.
What workers are asking for
We asked our members and their leaders—representing the broadest cross-section of Ontario’s public sector workforce—what they need from this budget.
1. More public services and less privatization
Public services and direct public investment have historically stabilized Ontario’s economy, particularly during times of economic distress. However, Ontario is experiencing a decline in program spending ($971 per Ontarian by 2027), not keeping pace with inflation, demand, or population growth.
The impacts across key sectors are clear:
- Health care: Ontario funds public hospitals at the lowest rate per person in Canada. The consequences include hallway medicine, a surgical backlog of more than 250,000 procedures (including children) as of March 2023 with growing waitlists, and tens of thousands of residents without access to a family doctor. Ontario’s own Financial Accountability Office (FAO) confirms that the current budget will not keep up with demand or level of services.
- Post-secondary education: Ontario spends the least per student of any This chronic underfunding has led to over 600 program closures, historic job losses (over 10,000 members), and stagnant enrollment at public colleges—despite an ongoing need for training and retraining. Instead of addressing this crisis, government funding is intentionally being diverted to private, untested, and piecemeal training programs.
- Social services: Spending continues to decline in the social services sector where precarious workers support Ontario’s most vulnerable residents. As public funding drops, private and agency hiring increases—driving costs while weakening service quality. The Financial Accountability Office (FAO) and Ontario’s Ombudsman have sounded the alarm that this underfunding cannot continue without harming vulnerable Ontarians who rely on social and community services.
- Across sectors: Private and agency staffing is hollowing out health care, long-term care, community services, and education. For example, between 2013-14 and 2022-23, Ontario’s hospitals paid out $9.2 billion to for-profit staffing agencies that cost up to three times more than employing in-house hospital workers. Every dollar spent on a for-profit staffing agency costs the sector and taxpayers down the line and further exacerbates the staffing crisis. Members are calling for an end to this model and a return to stable, dignified public-sector work and services.
Key Demands:
- Invest directly in job creation through public services, not privatization.
- Increase base operating funding for public hospitals to at least the national average.
- Increase per-student funding for post-secondary education to the national average and stabilize public colleges through emergency funding.
- Increase funding in social services and community-based care through public delivery models that keep up with inflation and demand.
- End reliance on private and agency staffing to fill gaps in health care, long-term care, community services, and education.
2. The government must ensure fair wages and pay equity and restore lost wages
While public services are stretched, OPSEU/SEFPO members struggle with stagnant or suppressed wages. The government has allowed this to happen and continue amidst a cost-of-living crisis.
A recent report identified over $200 million in stolen wages owed to workers in Ontario. OPSEU/SEFPO members across the social services sector are actively fighting to recover over $51 million in wages withheld due to the unconstitutional Bill 124. Nearly one in five workers in Ontario’s cities earns less than a living wage, with regions such as Windsor, Thunder Bay, London, and Greater Sudbury facing especially acute challenges.
Work must pay the bills. For many of our members, it no longer does.
Key demands:
- Budget 2026 must finally deliver the long‑overdue remedies for Bill 124.
- Commit to pay equity and living-wage compensation across publicly funded sectors.
- Strengthen enforcement against wage theft and improve worker protections.
- Ensure public funding is tied to fair wages and decent work standards.
3. Comprehensive staffing and retention plan across the public sector
Many of our workers deliver the most essential services under the worst conditions. Chronic understaffing has driven burnout and increased harassment and abuse, and it has pushed skilled workers out of the workforce.
In the health sector, Ontario’s hospitals face critical shortages of nurses and PSWs, leading to emergency room closures, burnout, and delayed care. Projections from the FAO show tens of thousands more health-care workers will be needed by 2032. Staff shortages and overreliance on for-profit agencies have led to public spending on private agencies outpacing growth in public hospital staff.
Additionally, our members face unsustainable working conditions, from ambulance workers facing elevated mental health and cancer risks to PSWs routinely using unpaid personal time to fill gaps in home care. Without action, workforce sustainability will continue to erode.
Retention, not just recruitment, is essential to system stability and value for public dollars.
Key demands:
- Fund a comprehensive staffing and retention plan across the public sector.
- Support retention through fair wages, enforceable workload standards, and improved working conditions.
- Align workforce planning with long-term demographic and service needs.
- Expand access to public training, retraining, and career mobility pathways.
- Fund health and safety protections, including violence prevention and mental health support for frontline workers.
The case for responsible fiscal choices and reprioritization
The solutions outlined above are achievable. The funding exists.
Over $2.5 billion has been carved out through the Skills Development Fund to recipients with little or no track record at delivering workforce training. Taxpayer-funded advertising by the province has reached a record $112 million. At the same time, developer giveaways and the government’s 401 tunnel vision could carry a price tag approaching $100 billion with taxpayers also bearing the cost of a $9 million feasibility study.
Redirecting even a portion of these funds to core public services would stabilize and strengthen the economy, the workers who run them and the communities that rely on them.
The government has a choice: It can invest in stable jobs, fair pay, decent working conditions, and public services that work. Or it can continue to divert public dollars toward privatization, highways, and vanity projects. Our members are willing to work with the government to fix the province; is the government ready to heed their call?