The spectre of the Liberals’ 1995 budget cuts loom over public sector unions as Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to introduce his first budget Tuesday.

The federal public service workforce has grown significantly over the last two decades under both Conservative and Liberal governments, and the number of federal bureaucrats is higher than its pre-pandemic peak.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who will table the Carney government’s first budget on Tuesday, has suggested that the federal workforce numbers are not “sustainable.”

But federal union leaders who spoke to Global News say cutting the public service are pushing back, arguing job cuts are not the most efficient path the reining in the government’s operating budget.

“We’ve seen a pattern in the last year, the end

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