The president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union is vowing to defend its members and public service jobs after the Houston government announced cuts over the next four years.

Sandra Mullen reacted to the cuts in an interview Tuesday with CBC Radio’s Information Morning.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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What did you think of the budget?

There’s certainly a lot to process and we have been working diligently through this document, trying to identify its true impact to our members. [The budget is] called Defending Nova Scotia. We’re going to be defending our members and of course the important public service jobs that they deliver.

This year’s cuts include the equivalent of more than 1,000 full-time jobs spread across government and the broader public sector. Does that number fit with what you’re seeing?

It’s difficult to identify that number in particular, so we’ve been looking through department by department. Of the public service of civil service members that we represent, there are about 8,500. However, there are closer to 13,000 in total, which would represent a huge number of excluded staff. So we are told it’s a lot of folks, including those who are excluded, so those would not be my members. So we’re trying to identify what are the particular unionized jobs that may be cut. And so we’ll be working through that in the coming days.

Are the excluded workers non-union?

They are the bureaucrats and I’ve seen all the reports and indications that there’s a level of government that they intend to cut. They’re looking at another three per cent outside of the immediate public service. [There are] cuts to grants funding. We have a number of members who work in jobs that are funded by those grants, so there are implications there as well … it’s pretty widespread. We’ll be working through this document to identify the jobs. The minister himself earlier on, late in 2025, indicated they would not be cutting front-line jobs. These cuts are serious, so we’ll be looking at that.

You mentioned the cuts to grants, $130 million cuts from grants to community groups. What effect do you think that will have?

They have serious impacts because some of these grant-based programs deliver services beside the department services. For example, in the Department of Justice, there are a number of grant-based community jobs out there that support the work needed to be done in the court system, whether that’s visitations of families, reports, community corrections … A number of our programs that we represent members in provide services to youth and the underserved membership in this community throughout the province. These cuts are widespread and we will be having to dig deep to identify what this really means.

The finance minister said the goal here is to protect the core front-line services that we rely on, and that these cuts would be covered through attrition where possible. What do you think of that statement?

I think they are lining things up. They just recently, within the last two weeks, identified all civil servants have to return to work full time five days a week. Is that a pressure to push people out?… Certainly members have opportunities and options, but now cuts to these programs. If you cut the support staff behind these front-line workers, they’re going to have to work harder, do twice the work, which is going to lessen the services they’re able to provide. So we have some serious concerns.

Do you think any unionized member would leave their job over having to go back to the office full time?

It certainly depends on their circumstances and where they are in their career and years of service. I have not heard of any in particular, but members are definitely dealing with many items right now. And then facing department cuts. I see cuts to Service Nova Scotia. Service Nova Scotia are front-line, front-facing people offering services, whether that’s licensing your registration for your vehicles, all of that, that is front-serving. So there’s lots to look at.

What about education and health care? The minister said that these departments would be protected. What do you think of that?

Well, from what I’ve read, they’re protecting the teacher level of jobs but looking at the other programs offered by the centres for education [like] specialty programs that provide services to marginalized communities, be it the African Nova Scotia community, the Mi’kmaw services. Cutting those programs is a true disservice to the education system in this province.

When we look at health … as much as we don’t think they can cut front-line health-care workers — we don’t have enough to begin with — but they’re reducing the levels of overtime allowed, therefore impacting the services delivered, which is going to slow the services down for surgeries and so on and so on.

What does this budget say about this government’s priorities?

We have seen massive spending [and] a reduction in revenues. [Premier Tim Houston] bought an election. I don’t remember anyone saying, ‘Gee, you should take the tolls off the bridge, reduce the income tax by one per cent.’ Nobody asked for that. And yet now you’ve reduced those sources of revenue and you want to make the cuts on the backs of Nova Scotians who work throughout this province, have good paying jobs in their communities, and you want to cut those positions. We’ve seen over the course of since 2018, our civil service has grown only four per cent. The population of this province has grown 14 per cent. So we’re certainly not keeping up, and further cuts are going to diminish the services to Nova Scotia.

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