Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is looking for a new chief of staff.Office of the Premier of Alberta (OPA) Chief of Staff Marshall Smith confirmed to the Western Standard on Monday he would be retiring from his position in the near future, but he would not specify a date. Western Standard sources said OPA Executive Director Rob Anderson will be named the new chief of staff. Marshall said he has been working in politics for a long time and has seen it evolve over the years. When he started in politics, he joked the computers political staffers used were ancient. While he would be retiring from his position, he did not indicate who would become the new chief of staff. Meanwhile, he said Granary Kitchen owner Patrick Malkin had been brought on as a deputy chief of staff to manage human resources. The Granary Kitchen made headlines in 2022 for requesting people show puppy photos instead of vaccine passports to get into it. Marshall held several senior positions in the British Columbia government. As a chief of staff in the BC government, he was involved with co-ordinating the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. In 2004, he fought a battle with addiction that led him to the streets of Vancouver. After a four-year fight with addiction and homelessness, he rededicated his life and career to recovery. As a recovery expert, he has developed several leading programs in BC and Alberta and has lectured about it at various universities. In 2019, he was brought on as chief of staff for the Alberta mental health and addictions associate minister. When Danielle became Alberta premier in 2022, Marshall was hired as her chief of staff. Prominent Canadian political commentator Aaron Gunn held a premiere for his documentary Canada Is Dying about the drug crisis in the country at the Canyon Meadows Cinemas in Calgary in 2023..Aaron Gunn releases documentary about drug problems in Canada.Canada Is Dying covered Marshall, who used to be a a former drug addict. He lost his career to drug use and vanished into Vancouver's streets for four years. He called this time a dark moment in his life, but he was able to recover. As part of his role as chief of staff and his background, he has spearheaded Alberta's drug response strategy. Sources said to the Globe and Mail in July Alberta cabinet ministers and political staffers attended games during the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton as guests of a person whose business was involved in bringing in Turkish children’s medicine to the province and attended another one in Vancouver with tickets given to them by a director of a provincial Crown corporation. While the cabinet ministers and staffers were allowed to attend these games, the Alberta government changed the ethics rules in 2023 to enable them to accept gifts more easily. The legislation mandated MLAs disclose such tickets in particular incidents and enabled the premier’s chief of staff, who was Marshall, to determine their acceptability.
