First staff for Graham Government beginning to appear

The Government website is now showing two Liberal staffers.

Bruno Roy, who lost in his bid to defeat Tory Cy LeBlanc in Dieppe Centre-Lewisville by 58 votes, will be the Chief of Staff in the Office of Government Members.

Denise Camerson Scott, wife of MP Andy Scott and a former Liberal staffer both in government and opposition, will be Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of Government Members.

For those not as nerdy as I, the office of Government Members provides support for backbenchers in the government and staffs the legislature when it is in session and so forth.

UPDATE

The government just put out a press release indicating five senior appointments and the government directory now shows some staff in the Premier's Office.

Several deputy minister and equivalent appointments: Dana Clenndenning, a Liberal activist, replaces Barbara Windsor, a Tory activist as president of NB Liquor. A former NB deputy minister returns to be DM at Energy while a long time lawyer becomes deputy minister of Justice.

I am more interested in the political appointments announced:

Bernard Thériault will be the Premier's chief of staff. Thériault was an MLA from 1987-2000 before resigning to unsuccessfully run against Yvon Godin in the 2000 federal election. A Francophone is a logical choice for this job.

Chris Baker will be Secretary (deputy minister) to the Policy and Priorities Committee of Cabinet. Baker was the Liberal pollster in the 2003 election and moved to New Brunswick from Ontario in 2004 to become Graham's chief of staff a role he served for the balance of the Liberal leader's role in opposition.

Other appointments showing up on the government website:

Joan Kingston is the Principle Secretary to the Premier. This is a role we haven't had before in New Brunswick or at least not recently. Traditionally when a first minister has a chief of staff and a principle secretary the first is more concerned with politics and administration and the second with policy and planning. Kingston was an MLA from 1995 to 1999 and served as Minister of the Environment and Minsiter of Labour. She joined Graham's office as chief of staff when he became leader in 2002 and in 2004 became "Senior Advisor" charged with recruitment of women and platform development.

Linda Haché is Director of Operations. She served as EA to Camille Thériault as minister and premier and was with the opposition office from 1999. First as EA to Thériault and after his resignation as office manager.

Heather Allaby is Director of Writing and Research. She has been with the opposition office since shortly after the 1999 election and was a Researcher, then Director of Research and Planning and then Senior Policy Analyst.

Sheri Shannon is Executive Assistant to the Premier. She had the same role for sometime as EA to the Leader of the Opposition prior to the eleciton.

Also, at the bottom of the news release, Nicole Picot is listed as Director of Communications though this is not reflected on the staff list. She formerly worked with Frank McKenna and has been in Finance Department after the Tories came to power, in fact, she is still listed there.

UPDATE 2

A browse through the government directory finds that a number of ministers have EAs listed as well:

Gaitain Michaud, EA to Minister Ron Ouellette
Wade Flowers, EA to Minister Greg Byrne
Daniel Guitard, EA to Minister Roland Haché
Lorraine O'Brien, EA to Minister Rick Doucet
Alaina Nicholson, EA to Minister T. J. Burke
Lisa Arseneault, EA to Minister Donald Arseneault
Scott Masters, EA to Minister Ed Doherty
Penne Buckley, EA to Minister John Foran