British Columbians will hear much from publics sector unions over the next while about how any change to the size of government is unfair, unlike anything that happened elsewhere in the country, and built on misperceptions about the size of government in B.C.
Interested readers should thus keep some the following statistics in mind. They are drawn from the 2002 pre-budget submission recently presented to the provincial government by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The status-quo advocates argue that the number of civil servants in B.C. is, per capita, the second lowest in the country after Ontario. Perhaps, but the cost of those employees is significantly more on average. We know this since the cost of the provincial government (relative to the economy) stands at 26 percent of provincial gross domestic product in B.C.

That compares to a size-of-government-to-GDP ratio of 21 percent in Ontario and 20 percent in Alberta. Put another way, our government is about a fifth larger than that in the other two 'have' provinces. (Other provinces have larger ratios given that the 'have' provinces send transfer payments to the 'have-nots'.) Does this matter You bet. Just like a larger mortgage payment as a percentage of one's income squeezes out other choices.

According to Statistics Canada, the average provincial public sector wage in British Columbia in 2000 was $4,300 higher than that in the private sector; $37,499 compared to $33,128.

According to Stats B.C. - staffed by provincial public servants - public sector workers were half as likely to experience unemployment in the 1990s in comparison with the private sector. And government employees were more likely to be employed full-time (90%) as opposed to workers in the private sector (80%).
British Columbia was the only province where the public sector wage bill rose in the 1990s (by +1.7%). In contrast, the average decrease across the country was -11 percent, with decreases in NDP-led Saskatchewan hitting -13.7 percent while Alberta and Manitoba's public sector wage bill decreased by 22.3 percent. Those figures cover federal, provincial, and municipal staff. But as Ottawa itself dropped spending from $122.6 billion to $104.8 billion between 1993 and 1997, that leaves the province and the municipalities as the ones who could have increased spending. Coincidentally, provincial per capita spending was up by 7.5% in British Columbia in the last decade. All of the above is from Statistics Canada.

In the last four years, British Columbia has seen a net loss of over 19,000 people to other provinces between the ages of 25 and 54, while gaining (net) 1,050 people over the age of 65. (Thanks to the Urban Futures Institute for the raw data.) Retirees are nice people to have and don't generally bust into cars or homes like younger people, but they do cost the mostly publicly financed health care system more. Meanwhile, B.C. has seen a net inter-provincial loss of those in their highest earning years, i.e., 25-54. That poses problems for the tax base.

If B.C. matched Alberta's unemployment rate, 75,000 more people would be working and provincial coffers would be $412 million richer. Of course, no one can snap their fingers and make it happen overnight, but economic policy, regulation, land claims, and tax policy matters. The government - and the public sector class warfare troops - should focus on making B.C. attractive again. Once that happens, the numbers will improve for everyone, and not just the public sector.