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Because Nicolaides happens to be Alberta’s advanced education minister and, as such, is actively living up to his portfolio’s moniker by getting ahead of one of the most regular and egregious misuses of public money that takes place every year with dreary and depressing monotony.

You see, if you’re looking to scoop a contract or sell some service to any level of government, then the best time to make the sales pitch is when the month of March appears upon the horizon.

OK; now some simple innocents, those who’ve never worked in or around the public sector, might be pondering what’s so special about that particular time of year.

It’s simple really: the annual budgetary year for government begins April 1 (ain’t that wonderfully appropriate for us foolish taxpayers). Therefore the end of the preceding month signals only one thing to all those various departmental head honchos with their happy hands on the purse strings: spend it or lose it.

Because this is a world where there’s no prize for coming in under-budget. If you don’t spend every last penny (even better if you can slide in over budget and get away with it, as that becomes your new, set-in-absolute-stone baseline), then you run the real risk of not getting the same amount in the financial year about to begin.

And, of course, that would never do: because your singular place in this quite wonderful world of public service is defined by two measures: how many people report to you and how big is your budget.