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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-04-27, Page 6PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1988. director of the Plant Industry Citizen exclusive The Citizen last week was given a unique opportunity, the chance to follow an Ontario cabinet minister on his duties for a day. Citizen writer Keith Roulston was allowed access even into some of the briefing sessions for Huron M. P. P. Jack Riddell Thursday. The resulting article shows just how much can be packed into one day when you 're Ministerof Agriculture overseeing 2400 employees spread across the province. Hand on hip, hands gestulating, Jack Riddell, Ministerof Agriculture looks London Free Press reporter Gordon Wainman right in the eye as he defends government policy during a luncheon meeting with farm writers. Toronto at 7 a.m. looks almost habitable for a Huron county resident. The subways, filled with people sitting with eyes closed, catching up on the sleep they missed getting ready for work at this early hour, speed people beneath the city without the push and crush that will come in a few more minutes. Traffic on the streets resembles roadways, not parking lots. Individual people, not rivers of humanity, move along the sidewalks. At 7:15 in Darby’s restaurant downstairs in the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Building at 801 Bay Street, the tables are already filled. In one corner Jim Ashman, Director of the Dairy Inspection Branch and Jim Wheeler, Director of the Fruit and Vegetable Branch, exchange a mixture of small talk and business talk over breakfast. Mr. Wheeler is another Huron County boy in the upper echelon of the ministry, born and raised in Grey township. Later he joins Jim Fitzgerald, Executive Assistant to Jack Riddell, Minister of Agricul­ ture, at another table and they talk about a briefing Mr. Wheeler will give to Mr. Riddell later in the morning about problems with setting standards in honey produc­ tion.After the meal they go through the back door of the restaurant into the lobby of the building, crowded with office furniture being shifted from one government office build­ ing to another. The 11th floor of the OMAF building is a world divided. To the left, as you come off the elevator, is the permanent administrative staff, therealmof Clay Switzer, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and the other top civil servants in the ministry. To the right are the offices of the minister and his staff, the people whose fate is tied to the fate of the minister. If the government loses an election or if the premier decides to shift Mr. Riddell to a new post or drop him from cabinet altogether, these people will be moving out too. Jim Lehman, the former ambu­ lance driver from Dashwood who is now driver and attendant to the headlines say 'OUCH' over budget minister, waits beside the recep­ tiondesk. The minister isn’t in yet, he says. A stack of daily news­ papers sits on the counter. Mr. Lehman takes one copy of each to the minister’s office, and Mr. Fitzgerald takes a copy to his office. It’s Thursday, the day after the budget and he winces a little at the three-inch headline on the Toronto Star that savs simply: “OUCH!” Jim Fitzgerald was editor of the Clinton News-Record for 10 years before opening a photography business in Clinton. When Mr. Riddell was named Minister of Agriculture in 1985, he asked Mr. Fitzgerald to become his Executive Assistant. In some cabinet offices th? only way to the minister is through the Executive Assistant, but neither Mr. Riddell nor Mr. Fitzgerald feel comfortable with that secup, so a team approach is used, with any member of the staff being able to go directly to Mr. Riddell. The office is quiet before 8 a.m. Mr. Fitzgerald goes about putting fresh coffee on to brew, and switches on his computer. There is an island of desks in the middle of the office complex where later Bruno Servello, receptionist and secretary, Ernesta De Acetis, administrative advisor, and secre­ taries Kelly Dyment and Debbie Cherry work. It turns out later in the day to be an island of calm, surrounded by the swirl of hectic activity from the people in the offices around the outside of the room who have the job of keeping the minister informed and on time as the day goes on. It’s about eight when Mr. Riddell arrives. He and his wife Anita keep an apartment in the College Park Apartments about a block away at Yonge and College, and he walks to work. It is the one slow, relaxing time of the day. He sits at his desk and has a chance to go over some paper work, togooverhisagendaforthe day time to chat about what plays are going to be upcoming at the Blyth Festival this summer. He says he’d like to get to them all but doesn’t know if his schedule will allow it. Mr. Fitzgerald says he’s already been booked to attend the opening night in June (a four-page listing of events commitments as far ahead as December is kept updated by the staff). The minister’s office, on the northwest corner of the 11th floor, is the most comfortable of the offices, more like a well decorated living room in a home than the standard government-issue offices of the staff. Carpet, soft drapes, photos and mementos on the walls, and a conversation grouping of sofas and chairs in one corner give the room a more serene feeling than the harder edge of the rest of the offices. At 8:30 Jim Wheeler and John Wiley, Liason Officer with the Economics and Policy branch, arrive to brief Mr. Riddell before he goes to the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy (CCEP) at 9 a.m., at the Legislature building. They want to make sure he knows what will be discussed, particularly as it relates toOMAF. Sometimes, particularly when their own ministry is propos­ ing new legislation that requires complicatedtechnical back-up, advisors from the various depart­ ments of the ministry will go with Mr. Riddell to such meetings. CCEP with representatives from 16 ministries, is one of 10 cabinet sub-committees which examines various areas of government prior­ ity before it goes to the whole cabinet.. The ministers meeton alternate Thursdays; on the other Thursdays, the deputy minsters meet. Mr. Riddell sits on six such committees. The burden is lighter nowwhenthegovernment has a huge majority than it was before the election, when he had to sit on more committees because of the small number of cabinet ministers. The pace in the rest of the office is picking up by now. Bruce Stewart, the minister’s Communi­ cations Advisor, rushes a draft of Mr. Riddell’s speech 'to the Eastern Canada Farm Writers association to the office of policy advisor Lou D’Onofrio’s office for a last minute check. It is, he says, draft number four of the speech. Speeches on Ministry policies Speeches go through long approval process are written by speechwriters from the Communications Branch of the ministry. Well in advance of a speaking engagement, the speech­ writer is briefed on what it should contain, and the first draft is circulated to the three assistant deputy ministers and to program directors of areas that might be involved in the speech. Today, for instance, there will be an announcement about Food Systems 2002, a program to reduce pesticide use in farming, so the Branch, Ralph Shaw, will see a draft of the speech. Any speech with a major announcement will also go to the Premier’s office. Finally the speech comes to the minister ’ s staff for approval, and to Mr. Riddell himself before it goes back to the Communications Branch for the final draft. Copies will be made available to all the farm writers at the luncheon. At9:02, Mr. Riddell has com­ pleted his briefing and rushes into the office of Nan Thomson, his Constituency Advisor, with a bulging red file of letters and information from his constituency offices back in Huron County. She is, Ms. Thomson explains later, the sort of central command for the three constituency offices back home - the full-time offices in Exeter and Wingham, and the part-time office in Goderich. The offices in the riding deal withlocalproblems, likepeople who have lost their OHIP card or Constituency offices solve routine problems are having trouble getting Unem­ ployment Insurance benefits (the offices deal with a lot of things that aren’t actually provincial govern­ ment functions, she says). There are a lot of problems solved for constituents that Mr. Riddell won’t even hear about. Part of Ms. Thomson’s duties is to help set up meetings to deal with larger problems in the constituen­ cy. When north Huron municipali­ ties were pushing for reconstruc­ tion of Highway 4 between Blyth and Wingham, she had to do a lot of contactingother ministries and drafting correspondence for Mr. Riddell. When groups from Huron come in to meet with other ministries over problems, she usually goes along as Mr. Riddell’s backup. Since it is often hard to co-ordinate the schedules of busy ministers, the delegation will be asked if it is really important that Mr. Riddell be along. When East Wawanosh council met with Mini­ stry of Transport and Communica­ tions officials recently, for in­ stance, Mr. Riddell was on a trade mission toJapan. Ms. Thomson went along in his place. She also goes to a lot of briefings with other ministries because ‘ ‘you have to know what programs are out there.” The most frustrating part of the job for both her and Mr. Riddell is whenthe problem a constituent wants solved is beyond the scope of the minister, but they won’t believe you, she says. People think the minister should be able to pressure a bank into giving a loan to someone it has turned down, or solve a problem that is the federal government’s jurisdiction. People seemto think thatthe minister is all ^powerful, and that having a cabinet minister as their M.F.P. is an instant solution to their problems, she says. A former temporary worker with Continued on Page 7