QUEBEC - One of Quebec's largest unions is asking the provincial government to increase taxes by almost $1 billion.
The Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) says that would be a better way to eliminate the province's roughly $4.7-billion deficit than simple budget cuts.
Public-sector workers want an 11.2 per cent raise over three years and union leaders want the government to abandon plans to cap the size of government.
The union says the government can find more cash by reversing the $950-million in tax cuts delivered in 2007 after an influx in new transfers from Ottawa.
The union will make its proposals at provincial pre-budget hearings this week.
It's asking the government to erase the provincial deficit over seven years instead of four.
Union president Claudette Carbonneau says she will fight against any move to "decrease and weaken the state's role and its capacity to act."
"Stopping this train of cutbacks rarely seen in the last 40 years will be a great fight that we will lead," Carbonneau says.
She calls the government's current budget plans "unrealistic" and says they will plunge Quebec "down the path of the massive cuts from the dark years of the zero-deficit fight (of the 1990s)."
