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“That seems to be the foundation of the B.C. Liberals’ jobs plan, every time we look at the Orders in Council, there’s a new failed candidate who has been given a sizable pay increase and is now working on the government dime,” Horgan said on July 4, 2013.

“There are no job qualifications for them. (Were) they interviewed for the positions against other qualified candidates? We have a basement teeming with interns, young capable people who don’t profess to have a partisan stripe, working for both caucuses. Did they have an opportunity to get one of these jobs?”

But the Horgan government has followed the same path as the Liberals. Now in power, it doesn’t view those types of hires as a problem anymore.

“It is both normal and necessary to hire staff who share the government’s vision and can implement its commitments,” the premier’s office said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “Our government has been fully transparent about its staff appointments, including salaries.”

The government’s ministerial assistant and communications jobs are littered with young New Democrats, former Alberta NDP staff, former federal NDP staff, 11 former NDP constituency assistants and at least six former Vision Vancouver staffers — including the party’s previous digital director and manager of youth engagement. Executive director Stepan Vdovine quit in August to work as an NDP assistant. Former Vision parks board chair Niki Sharma, a lawyer, was also hired to a similar job.