HIRING DRUG PROSECUTORS FOR KITCHENER A PRIORITY

KITCHENER -- A hiring freeze may hamper efforts to open a satellite office
in Kitchener staffed by three full-time federal drug prosecutors to handle
the burgeoning marijuana home-grow cases and other drug charges.

The opening of the office "is not an absolute as a result of a hiring
freeze" placed on the federal Department of Justice, Stephane Marinier, a
federal Justice Department prosecutor, said yesterday.

Originally, the office was slated to open next month, but Marinier said the
recently imposed hiring freeze has created a hurdle that must be overcome.

But Marinier and his boss, Croft Michaelson, remain confident that senior
federal bureaucrats will allow an exemption to the hiring freeze to meet
the need for a Kitchener-based office.

"We do consider this an urgent priority," said Michaelson, who oversees
federal prosecution offices across Canada.

This urgent need was sparked by the recent resignations of Gerry Taylor and
Pat Flynn -- two local lawyers who handled drug prosecutions on behalf of
the federal government.

For the past several months, three staff lawyers from the Toronto office of
the Justice Department have been filling in for Flynn and Taylor, but
Marinier, who is one of the three lawyers doing double duty in Toronto and
Kitchener, said that is no longer practical.

"I have a full-time job other than co-ordinating and attending court in
Kitchener," Marinier said.

"From our perspective, there are no other options and I hope those
reviewing the situation would see it like that as well," he said.

The three lawyers slated to work in the Kitchener office would come from
the Toronto office, and Marinier said additional staff would be needed to
fill the void created by their departure.

"The reality is our office can't absorb the work in Kitchener without an
increase in our own compliment," he said.

Adds Michaelson: "Certainly the workload in Kitchener-Waterloo is justified
to warrant a satellite office."