Nick Harsulla

The roles and responsibilities of UFA's Senior Manager of Government Relations is to represent, update, and advise the UFA board of directors, senior leadership, and UFA membership regarding federal, provincial and municipal policies, laws, regulations, government funding and other developments that UFA has determined as an interest to the co-operative and its members business operations.

UFA Co-operative Ltd., as a significant stakeholder in the agriculture and the petroleum resale industry, serves as a constructive partner, sounding board, educator, and ally. Accordingly, UFA's government relations plan sets out to achieve the following objectives:

• Increase UFA's public profile;
• Strengthen UFA's image as a credible advocate for Alberta agriculture;
• Participate and provide input at policy round tables and consultation sessions;
• Act as a voice that supports the values and expectations of our members (enhanced value proposition);
• Ensure that UFA is up-to-date and aware of government policy that affects our members/customers; and
• Provide early insight and details into upcoming legislative changes that require implementation action for execution of UFA's businesses.

It is important to note that all advocacy efforts are non-partisan in nature and not associated with a political party and/or government.

The Chief of Staff role for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is to incorporate the following: select and supervise office staff, control access to the Minister's office and the Minister, and to work with Caucus, government departments, and external stakeholder organizations to implement the Minister's mandate.

Duties include:

• Provide strategic and political advice to Minister and senior department officials on policy and industry issues.
• Minister's principal liaison to department, industry leaders, stakeholders, Premier's Office, other Ministers' Offices, and MLA's.
• Spearhead reorganizations, business process and operational improvement initiatives in the Ministry.
• Responsible for Ministerial office budget.
• Engage in discussions with stakeholders regarding new initiatives, problems with existing services, or exploring how to improve current relationships.

The core responsibility is to provide research and strategy support to the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General, reporting directly to the Minister's Chief of Staff.

Duties include:

• Organize and assemble cabinet, policy committees and caucus materials for the Minster and his Chief of Staff.
• Daily briefing to Chief of Staff on question period, cabinet, policy committee, caucus agenda's and ministerial initiatives.
• Routing all upcoming Orders-in-Council's and preparing the Minister for appointments pertaining to Cabinet discussion.
• Support legislative council to prepare the Alberta Justice legislative agenda.