Hill Climbers
A few familiar faces fill Minister Fraser’s justice office
Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser currently presides over an 18-member ministerial staff team led by chief of staff Savannah DeWolfe, and has picked up a few ex-aides from his portfolio predecessor.
As reported by Hill Climbers back in June, DeWolfe returned to the Hill to resume her role as chief of staff to Fraser, who is also the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Morgan MacDougall-Milne has been kept on as director of litigation. MacDougall-Milne has been with the justice office since 2020, starting under then-minister David Lametti as a special assistant for parliamentary affairs. She was later made a parliamentary affairs and litigation adviser, and was promoted again to her current director title after Arif Virani took over as justice minister in July 2023. MacDougall-Milne is also a past assistant to Ontario Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin.
Also coming from Virani’s former justice office are senior adviser Keith Torrie, senior policy adviser Dahlia James, operations and appointments adviser Charlie Skipworth, and Quebec regional adviser and assistant to the parliamentary secretary Roméo Ntwari.
Torrie is a former associate with Rotenberg Shidlowski Jesin in Toronto, and began working for the former Trudeau government in 2022 as a policy and legal affairs adviser to then-public safety minister Marco Mendicino. Torrie joined the federal justice minister’s office under Virani in 2023 as a senior policy adviser. A former national director of the Young Liberals of Canada, during the recent election campaign, he lent his efforts as an issues manager for the Liberals in Ontario.
James has likewise been with the justice office since being hired as a senior policy adviser to Virani in 2023. A past lawyer with John Mickelson Law Corporation in Vancouver, she first came to Ottawa to work on the Hill as a policy adviser to then-northern affairs minister Dan Vandal in 2021. James left Vandal’s office in April 2023, and briefly worked as a senior policy adviser with the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities before returning to work for Virani that September.
Skipworth has been working on the Hill since 2022, starting as an assistant to Virani as then-parliamentary secretary to then-trade minister Mary Ng. Skipworth later became an Ontario regional adviser to Ng, but exited in September 2023 after Virani was named to cabinet as justice minister, to join his office as a parliamentary affairs assistant. Most recently, Skipworth held the title of deputy director of operations and Atlantic regional adviser to Virani.
Ntwari started out as a 2024 summer intern in Virani’s justice office, and was hired full time as a Quebec regional adviser at the beginning of this year. A former parliamentary guide with the Library of Parliament, Ntwari spent the recent election working on Quebec Liberal MP Greg Fergus’ successful re-election campaign and is currently pursuing a doctor of law degree at the University of Ottawa. Liberal MP Patricia Lattanzio is currently parliamentary secretary to Fraser.
Keiran Gibbs has returned to the justice file as director of policy to Fraser. An ex-associate with Hutchins Legal, Gibbs was most recently director of policy in the offices of then-Treasury Board presidents Ginette Petitpas Taylor and Anita Anand, having first been hired as a senior policy adviser to then-president Mona Fortier in early 2023. Before then, Gibbs spent almost two years as a policy adviser to Lametti as then-justice minister.
Fraser’s policy team also includes Michael Kurliak, who will mark his first day as a senior policy adviser and West and North regional adviser to the minister on Aug. 18, and Thomas Law, policy and Ontario regional adviser.
Kurliak first began working for Fraser in June 2022, starting as a policy adviser in Fraser’s office as then-immigration minister. He was promoted to senior policy adviser after following Fraser to the housing portfolio in the wake of the July 2023 cabinet shuffle, and has now taken on added regional responsibilities. A former assistant to British Columbia Liberal MP Terry Beech, Kurliak recently helped his former boss get re-elected for a fourth term.
Former PMO advisers Albert Nolette and Julie Robinson have joined Fraser’s team as a judicial affairs and appointments adviser, and as an adviser for constitutional affairs and intergovernmental relations, respectively.
Nolette is a former lawyer with Field Law in Edmonton, Alta., and worked as a legal adviser and deputy director of human resources and appointments in Justin Trudeau’s office as prime minister from 2022 up until earlier this year.
Robinson, meanwhile, is an ex-lawyer with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin and a past lawyer with the Quebec Court of Appeal, and worked in Trudeau’s PMO as a senior human resources and legal affairs adviser and later deputy director for human resources between 2018 and 2022. She initially left on maternity leave, with Nolette replacing her on an acting basis—a change that was subsequently made permanent. Robinson returned to the Hill in 2023 as a senior policy adviser to then-justice minister Lametti. There is no indication of her having worked for Virani during his time as justice minister.
Tackling operations alongside Skipworth is operations adviser Alex Derickx. Derickx is a former special assistant and ministerial driver to Fraser as both immigration minister and later as housing minister.
With the West and North covered by Kurliak, Ontario covered by Law, and Quebec covered by Ntwari, Ray Anjoul is expected to join Fraser’s office soon to cover the Atlantic as a senior parliamentary affairs and regional adviser.
Anjoul comes from Nova Scotia’s political trenches where he previously worked for the provincial Liberal Party and for the governments of then-Liberal premiers Iain Rankin and Stephen McNeil.
Zoe Romeo has landed the role of director of parliamentary affairs to Fraser.
A former assistant to then-Liberal MPs Deb Schulte and Tony Van Bynen, Romeo has been working for Fraser since 2023 when she was hired as a legislative assistant in Fraser’s office as then-housing minister. Romeo was most recently a regional adviser for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, and assistant to the parliamentary to Fraser as housing minister.
Jeremy Bellefeuille is now director of communications to Fraser.
Bellefeuille returned to the Hill at the end of 2024 after more than a year away—part of which was spent as director of marketing communications for the airline Canadian North—to serve as communications director to then-veterans affairs minister Darren Fisher. Bellefeuille previously worked on the Hill between 2017 and 2023, starting as an assistant to then-Ontario Liberal MP Andrew Leslie and ending as director of communications to Fraser as then-immigration minister. In between, he also spent time as press secretary and later communications director to then-national revenue minister Diane Lebouthillier, and as communications director to then-rural economic development minister Gudie Hutchings.
Working closely with Bellefeuille is Lola Dandybaeva as manager of media relations, with Dakota Burgin expected to soon join the team as manager of digital communications.
Dandybaeva joined Fraser’s team from the PMO where she’d been working since 2022, starting as a special assistant for public appointments. After working her way up to adviser and then senior adviser status, Dandybaeva most recently switched her focus to tour advance work, which, according to her LinkedIn profile, she similarly helped tackle for now-Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership campaign at the beginning of this year. A former Liberal staffer at Queen’s Park and an ex-chief of staff to Toronto City Councillor Mike Colle, federally, Dandybaeva is also a past assistant to then-Ontario Liberal MP Valerie Bradford.
Burgin has been working off of the Hill as a public relations specialist with Evolve PR since 2023. He was last a senior communications adviser to then-labour minister Seamus O’Regan who Burgin had worked for since 2021, starting as a digital communications adviser. Burgin is also an ex-aide to now-Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu as the MP for Thunder Bay–Superior North, Ont., and briefly worked as a special assistant for communications to then-democratic institutions minister Karina Gould, among other past jobs.
Finally, capping off the 18 staffers currently confirmed in Fraser’s office is executive assistant and office manager Kate Cotman, who joined the justice team as of July 31.
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