A former CTV and CBC reporter hired by Wab Kinew\u2019s NDP government to lead Manitoba\u2019s trade office in Washington, D.C., is earning a $387,000 annual salary, the premier\u2019s office disclosed Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Former White House correspondent Richard Madan will earn more this year leading the D.C trade office than either Kinew will earn as Manitoba premier ($195,936 for the 12 months ending March 30) or Scott Gillingham will earn as Winnipeg\u2019s mayor ($223,338 as of 2024).<\/p>\n
Madan was hired in June to strengthen Manitoba’s ties with U.S. elected officials, trade officials and industry leaders, as well as to ensure the province’s interests are protected in trade agreements, Kinew\u2019s office said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n
Kinew spokesperson Ryan Stelter said Wednesday in a statement that Madan \u201cwas able to hit the ground running\u201d in his new role, thanks to \u201can established network of politicians, journalists, academics and other thought leaders in the U.S. capitol.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since June, Madan has met with Manitobans, helped the agricultural sector prepare for new U.S. country-of-origin labelling, dealt with new trade issues such as a U.S. investigation into Canadian mushrooms, and encouraged Manitobans to take part in consultations about the forthcoming renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, Stelter said.<\/p>\n
Madan has also started to organize a Capitol Hill \u201cadvocacy day\u201d for Manitoba, \u201cwhere U.S. lawmakers can learn of the province\u2019s supply chains for food and minerals\u201d and contributions to Arctic defence, Stelter said.<\/p>\n
This list of tasks did not impress Opposition Leader Obby Khan, who has used question period in recent weeks to deride Madan as a \u201cCBC buddy\u201d of Kinew who runs a \u201cwork from home\u201d trade office in Washington.<\/p>\n
Khan, the Progressive Conservative leader, said he was \u201cabsolutely floored\u201d to learn of Madan\u2019s $387,000 salary, which is part of an overall Washington trade office budget of $800,000 a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is preposterous. Like outrageous, absurd,\u201d Khan said Wednesday in an interview. \u201cThree hundred and eighty-seven thousand for a career journalist who’s untested in this industry? That is almost the same amount of money that the prime minister of Canada is making.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney will earn $406,000 this year.<\/p>\n
Khan said Madan \u201chas not secured a single trade deal for Manitoba\u201d and is earning \u201ceight times what an average salary in Manitoba is for someone at a time a lot of people can’t pay their bills and buy food and groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Khan repeated his criticism Thursday during question period at the Manitoba Legislature, Kinew defended the hire.<\/p>\n
“Richard Madan’s a great guy. He’s got the smarts. He’s got the looks. He’s got the connections to make the case for Manitoba in Washington, D.C.,” the premier said.<\/p>\n
The premier\u2019s office also noted Madan\u2019s salary is in line with what some other provinces are paying for trade representatives and lobbyists, such as Ontario\u2019s David Paterson, a former executive with General Motors, Manulife and BlackBerry, who will earn $364,000 this year.<\/p>\n
Ontario is also spending $600,000 on Washington lobbying firm Capitol Counsel, LLC this year, the premier\u2019s office noted.<\/p>\n
Khan said Manitoba would be better off hiring an experienced trade representative or lobbying firm, like Ontario did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Madan could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.<\/p>\n
According to his biography on LinkedIn, he spent four years at CBC Manitoba, six years at CityTV in Toronto and then 14 years at CTV in Ottawa and Washington before returning to CBC as a D.C. correspondent for two years.<\/p>\n
“I’ve covered Washington for almost a decade, so I know the players,” Madan said in June.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got a fairly decent Rolodex, and my role is to just be a facilitator [and] help get those meetings that could potentially lead to something lucrative down the road.”<\/p>\n
The disclosure of Madan\u2019s salary followed a three-month effort by CBC News to learn his compensation.<\/p>\n
CBC News filed a freedom-of-information request on July 7, asking for Madan\u2019s salary as well as a breakdown of the annual budget for the Washington office, including the travel budget.<\/p>\n
The request was due on Aug. 21 under Manitoba\u2019s freedom of information laws. As of Oct. 15, the record had not been released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former CTV and CBC reporter hired by Wab Kinew\u2019s NDP government to lead Manitoba\u2019s trade office in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-218502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}