Greg Lutes hired by Tories as Opposition's chief of staff

The Progressive Conservatives have hired Greg Lutes, one of the two former deputy ministers involved in the Larry's Gulch document-altering scandal, to be chief of staff of the Official Opposition.

Bob Fowlie, a spokesperson for the opposition, confirmed on Tuesday that Lutes has been hired to be top official in the opposition office.

'It's almost like Stephen Harper re-hiring Nigel Wright'

The Tories have not responded to a request for an interview about Lutes's hiring.

Instead, the Progressive Conservatives raised questions around the Atcon scandal and a hiring in Brian Gallant's office.

"They know they're caught in the corner and they're just trying to throw anything out to take attention from themselves. They have questions to answer," said Liberal cabinet minister Donald Arsenault.

Arsenault blasted the hiring.

"For the [Progressive] Conservatives to hire Greg Lutes, it's almost like Stephen Harper re-hiring Nigel Wright," he said.

It is not clear when Lutes took over as the opposition office's chief of staff.

Lutes was the deputy minister of tourism under former premier David Alward and was one of several PC-linked deputy ministers, who were let go when the Liberals came to power last October.

A recent investigation by Anne Bertrand, the province's information commissioner, concluded Lutes and Darell Fowlie, the director of communications in the premier's office, broke the Right to Information and Protection of Personal Privacy law in 2014.

The report said Lutes and Fowlie altered documents "with intent to conceal information."

Bertrand's report concluded Lutes and Fowlie were acting on a request by Murray Guy, an editor at the Moncton Times & Transcript, who wanted some of his personal information removed from the list before it was made public by the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture under a right to information request in March of 2014.

The report also said civil servants in the Department of Tourism raised questions about Lutes getting involved with seeking a letter from NB Liquor to remove the information about the 2013 fishing trip from the documents.

The province's information commissioner did not, however, recommend charges be laid against Lutes or Fowlie.

Arseneault said in July that Bertrand's report was being referred to the public prosecution office for a decision on whether charges are necessary in the Larry's Gulch scandal.

Last week, the RCMP received a series of reports into the alleged misuse of the Larry's Gulch fishing lodge and the document altering.

The public prosecution office's decisions are made at arm's-length from elected officials.

The RCMP confirmed they had received the reports.

Cynicism likely to grow

J.P. Lewis, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said the hiring of Lutes will likely continue to erode the public's confidence in the political system.

"It is another action by a political party that adds to the current cynicism that has been growing for years with regular voters and citizens' confidence in politics," he said.

Lewis said the Opposition may have timed the hiring to be announced in the summer in the hope that it would not be noticed by the public.

The political scientist said the revelations in the Mike Duffy trial in Ottawa show that people working in these political offices have a lot of power and influence.

"People should still pay attention," Lewis said.

"It is important to know who these people are. The person who is chief of staff in a leader's office is as important as a finance minister."