Premier Shawn Graham has decided to save money rather than replace the provincial government’s representative in Ottawa. Cutting the Ottawa office will save $150,000 a year, the cost of rent, phone, supplies and salary and expenses. New Brunswick had shared space in a downtown office tower with the representative for Manitoba.
Quite frankly, I never really understood the importance of having a lobbyist type person in Ottawa when there is a whole department of Intergovernmental Affairs and established relationships at the political level.
Notice Donald Savoie’s comments in the article.
Agreed. Although, if I had to choose, I’d rather see a government like Graham’s, who raison d’etre is attracting money from the feds to fund their ambitious economic mandate, keep the satellite office in Ottawa as opposed to rewarding mediocrity with $50 million dollar bailouts to a credit union that grossly mismanaged their financial affairs.