PC campaign manager joins Premier's Office, will earn taxpayer salary

The campaign consultant hired by the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick for this year's election has landed a second position — a taxpayer-funded job in the office of Premier Blaine Higgs. 

Steve Outhouse, whose company Just Campaigns is billing the PC Party for election-related services, is now Higgs's principal secretary.

It means Outhouse will draw a public salary at the same time he's engaged in paid partisan work.

The premier's spokesperson Nicolle Carlin said Outhouse will be paid up to $124,656. The government contract, via a second Outhouse company called Intercede Communications, will run until the election campaign begins in September. 

In a telephone interview, Outhouse said the dual role is not unusual. 

"There are political staff that are hired in both ministers' offices, opposition offices, premiers' offices, that are engaged in political activity in their spare time and so on, and I'll continue to do that, just like any political staffer would," he said.

Green Party Leader David Coon disputed the comparison, saying Outhouse is a "hired gun" brought to the province for the election, unlike a political staffer who does partisan work as an unpaid volunteer. 

"It's extraordinary," Coon said. "They're turning the premier's office into his election campaign headquarters."

Just Campaigns is providing what Outhouse calls "various services for partisan campaigning" on a contract, and he says he'll continue his party role "in my off-work time" from the premier's office.

He acknowledged the two roles won't always be completely separate.

"Not everything fits into nice neat little boxes but the work that I'll be doing within in the premier's office itself will be related to the premier's agenda and governing, and my involvement in the campaign will be separate from that," he said.

Robert Gauvin, Liberal MLA for Shediac Bay-Dieppe, said Outhouse will be "mixing it up" between government and campaign roles and it's unfair that New Brunswick taxpayers are paying him for that.

"Mr. Outhouse was not brought here to do that," Gauvin said. "I think this contract should be cut and the money should be reimbursed." 

Gauvin noted there's already crossover between the campaign and the government, with the slogan "Stronger Than Ever" from a PC election bus decorated last fall, also being used for the provincial budget in March.