The BC Government and Services Employees Union's outpour of sentiment for the apparent loss of income to Interior communities following 700 layoffs in the Ministry of Forests is touching but should fool no one as to their greatest loss -compulsory union-dues.

Nor is it a surprise to see the sky-is-falling green lobby join in the melee. The David Suzuki Foundation and the Sierra Club were both quoted on a BCGEU press release slamming the Campbell government's staff cuts and changes to the forestry code.

The public pressure they squeeze on the government and BC lumber industry will impress no one more than the American foundations that gave U.S. $635,000 to the David Suzuki Society and another U.S. $367,000 to the Sierra Club between 1998 and 2000.

The special interest groups' indignation is predictable. What's troubling is their historical amnesia over why the Liberal government is now compelled to chip away at BC's public sector.

Step back 10 years in time and BC's NDP government is ratcheting up public sector spending at an alarming rate while the other provinces are cutting back or holding the line on spending to balance the books. Between 1991 and 2001, the number of BC public sector employees grew by 17%. Over the same period, Alberta registered a 21% decrease while Ontario cut its public sector by 12%, according to Statistics Canada data.

Public sector wages and salaries in British Columbia outstripped the country as well. BC's public sector wages rose by 64% between 1991 and 2001 compared to 21% in Alberta and only 7% in Ontario. Unlike Alberta and Ontario, BC is in no position to play Santa Claus.

Today's modest civil service cuts were inevitable. BC taxpayers can not sustain the cost of a bloated bureaucracy in the face of a $4 billion deficit and a growing debt.

It's tragic for each of the 700 employees and their families who lost their government jobs. But the blame is misplaced. Had the previous NDP government exercised some common sense in the 1990s and kept public service costs in line with those of other provincial governments, today's 700 employees would likely be employed in a more buoyant private sector and still have a job today.

The laid-off employees have the NDP and their union backers to blame for creating the unsustainable jobs that the public sector has come to rely upon. The NDP government should never have created the expectation that public sector jobs were sustainable when they had neither the means nor resources to fulfill that commitment.

No one comes out smelling like roses after issuing 700 pink slips. But it's the logical extension of reckless NDP hiring in the 1990s that stemmed from a misguided philosophy that government owes everyone a job.

To repair the damage from the lost decade, the BC government should commit to trim public sector spending in line with Alberta and Ontario, balance the books and in doing so, restore investor confidence in British Columbia.

The true test of the government's spending restraint program will be in the creation of an abundance of private-sector job opportunities that spring from a new and dynamic provincial economy.