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Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker threw a little shade toward the government Thursday when it comes to the amount it spends on outside legal services while also accepting big political donations from private legal firms.

Bevan-Baker says he has been trying, unsuccessfully, to find out how much government spends contracting out legal work to private legal firms in P.E.I.

He then pointed out that during the 2015 election year, legal firms or individual lawyers contributed over $78,000 directly to the governing Liberal party.

“How can you expect the public to believe that in the absence of rules, your government is not practicing old fashioned patronage politics?” Bevan-Baker said.

He stressed he wasn’t trying to call into question the integrity of these legal professionals, but that he would like to see government bring in more oversight to the practice of government hiring outside lawyers.

Premier Wade MacLauchlan fired back, saying bringing up the notion of patronage does impugn the reputation of people. As for the question of how much government spends on legal services, MacLauchlan said money is spent where it’s necessary and would bring the amount back.