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When Marg McCuaig-Boyd made her way to the podium on Tuesday evening to give the keynote address at the 2015 Global Petroleum Show, you could tell that she was nervous. But most of the people in the audience were probably just as nervous as the province’s newly minted energy minister. After all, they were hearing for the first time from someone with no actual experience in the energy sector, and who was representing a government that had long taken an adversarial approach to an industry that was already up to its neck in adversity. “There’s no denying that change at the top after so long is challenging,” McCuaig-Boyd said in an awkward five minute speech during which she barely looked up from her notes. “But we are working hard to make the transition as smooth as possible.”

Well, so much for that.

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Yesterday, news leaked out that Graham Mitchell had been appointed as McCuaig-Boyd’s chief of staff. For those who don’t know him – which is to say, virtually everyone in Alberta – he’s a Toronto resident whose credentials include a Master’s of Environmental Studies from York University, a stint as Jack Layton’s executive assistant and a turn at the left-wing Broadbent Institute as its director of training and leadership. But if that sounds like an odd background for someone who’s going to advise Alberta’s minister of energy, it’s nothing compared to his association with LeadNow, an environmental lobby group that’s actively and aggressively opposed to Canada’s energy sector and its ambitions. He was the group’s executive director until a few days ago, and a registered lobbyist on its behalf since January 29th whose issues include “asking that the Conservative federal MPs in B.C. pressure cabinet to stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline” and “requesting that the National Energy Board take into account climate science and open up hearings to the general public during the Energy East pipeline review process.”