Ottawa Love Is A Battlefield: PATTON

John was Dalton McGuinty’s constituency assistant in his Ottawa South office for many years before he ran for Dalton’s vacated seat. I’m not sure how you’re drawing a parallel between that position and the Ottawa Ambassador that Ford has appointed. Every MPP, regardless of party, has a constituency assistant in their local office to deal with issues in the riding and respond to constituents concerns.

The Ambassador is being sent here by Doug Ford to act as some kind of liaison between Ottawa municipal councillors and bureaucrats and the provincial government. He also has a staff and office separate from the provincial elected officials in the city. I can assure you that the cost of that operation is many times what the salary of a constituency assistant has ever been.

What Ford has, in effect, done by appointing this individual is to admit that his local MPPs aren’t capable of doing their jobs, part of which is to liaise between their community and Queens Park. So he’s spending a boatload of money to put his own man on the City’s doorstep to do the job of his caucus members from Ottawa. No wonder Lisa McLeod would have no part of the announcement event.