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The Liberal government in Ottawa needs all the staff they can raid from Queen’s Park. And plenty of defeated federal Tories may find work in Toronto

But could there actually be hope on the horizon? If so, it comes from a strange source — Justin Trudeau’s recent victory. As reported by the Post’s Ashley Csanady last week, as part of transitioning from a third-place party to a majority government, the federal Liberals have been raiding the staffs of their Ontario cousins. Some of the closest advisors around the Prime Minister himself spent their recent years at Queen’s Park, as top advisors and staff to Premier Wynne and her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty. But it goes much deeper than that. It’s not just the Prime Minister’s Office that’s hiring. Every cabinet minister will need top-level staff, too, and will be able to offer at least equal (if not more) money and access to power as powerful incentives to make the move down the 401 to Ottawa. Plenty of comparatively low-level staff, people who’ll never be household names even to political junkies but whose work is a vital part of keeping a modern political machine running, may decide to go, too.

As much as I’d like to think that the Ontario voter may one day decide to remove the Liberals from power due for all the myriad of existing reasons, that’s obviously not going to happen, else it would have already. Hoping a hollowed out party fumbles their way into defeat isn’t much of a plan, but as an Ontario resident and taxpayer, I’m fresh out of better ideas.

And it’s not just the Liberals losing some of their top staff that may help. The Ontario Progressive Conservatives have been absolutely helpless for years. It’s been painful to watch. I realized years ago that one of the big problems hurting the PCs was the fact that anyone with real talent and potential was quickly being scooped up from the PCs to go run the Harper governments in Ottawa — a trend that obviously accelerated after the Conservatives won their majority in 2011. Some of these people are still gainfully employed by the new Conservative Official Opposition, but a good many — especially those from Ontario — need work. The 401 goes in both directions, after all. There’s a lot of good, seasoned political staff suddenly available for hire, and the Ontario PCs could use them.