Forests chopped by government axe

Shared Services BC may have been the hardest hit by the provincial government's second round of workforce adjustments, with 60 individuals being laid-off. But the ministry of forests and range also took a blow, with 45 individuals being notified their positions had been eliminated. So when the ministry's senior managers - including deputy minister Dana Hayden - got together in Richmond on Wednesday, some suspected that meeting may have been about additional post-2010 Winter Olympic Games downsizing. But, according to a government spokesperson, that wasn't the case. Instead that meeting was just part of the ministry's "ongoing business transformation process to identify ways to deliver services in the face of our workforce demographics and fiscal environment. No additional layoffs are expected as a result of that process."