Although Sault Ste. Marie’s provincial council member no longer holds a cabinet post in Queen’s Park, Ross Romano says he has been named head of government. Romano recently served as the province’s Minister of Government and Consumer Services under Ontario’s previous PC government. His name was missing when Prime Minister Doug Ford announced new ministers and parliamentary posts ahead of the next legislature meeting. In a telephone interview on Thursday, Romano said he had been asked to fill the post of head of government. Romano will replace Lorne Coe, who will act as parliamentary assistant to the prime minister. “Right now there is a little internal debate about whether I will have a more loaded program or a lighter program,” Romano said. “I am really happy that the prime minister considered it appropriate to make me do this position and I am happy to help because that is how we will go for the next four years to do it.” The head of the government whip has a number of functions in the legislature, including appointing and scheduling committee members to discipline members, assigning positions in Queen’s Park, and assisting members in moving individual legislation. few. “When you consider setting up an 83-member parliamentary group, it’s a very large group of people to manage,” Romano said. A special aspect of the role that Romano expects will be to help the 28 new members of Ontario PC acclimatize to their new positions. “They will need a lot of help to get through and understand the process. “At the end of the day, that falls under the whip of the head of government to be able to help these members deal with it and to work on the correlation of 83 members so that he can move forward with our government agenda,” Romano said. He admits it was a challenge when he was informed of the news that he would not be returning as minister, but said that the more he heard about his position as head of government, the more he knew he could intervene and help. “I’m extremely excited about this,” Romano said. Prior to that, he was in charge of Government and Consumer Services, and Romano was the Minister of Colleges and Universities in the province. “Having gone through the cabinet process and acknowledging how few people in history have ever been able to serve as ministers – and just looking at the total number of MPPs ever elected in Ontario history is actually just over a few thousand. And when “Look at the total number of cabinet members, it’s only a few hundred,” Romano said. “It is such a privilege and honor to serve in this capacity.”
