Rachel Notley has appointed a vocal protester of pipelines to run communications and stakeholder outreach in the Alberta NDP Calgary office.
Marcella Munro, a former CBC reporter, NDP activist, and former Earnscliffe Strategy Group lobbyist, has a history of openly opposing pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project. “Those of us who oppose it need to keep pushing,” she tweeted in 2013.
Cheryl Oates, Notley’s press secretary, was quoted as saying “Marcella works for the Premier and so we are confident she takes direction from Ms. Notley’s office and fully supports the priorities of the government.”
Munro joins Brian Topp, who ran the B.C. NDP’s unsuccessful election campaign in 2013 and is now Notley’s chief of staff, and John Heany, the former chief of staff of B.C. NDP leader John Horgan who is now Alberta’s deputy minister, policy coordination office.
Other NDP appointees moved in from the East such as Graham Mitchell, the former anti-oil sands activist from Toronto who became chief of staff to Alberta Energy Minister McCuaig-Boyd.