Good luck Dr. Marie
This news makes me sad.

Marie Bountrogianni is the nicest of the political bosses I've henchminioned for, and she does a lot of good work, even when the media aren't watching. About five years ago, when I was working a few hours a week in her office, she went out of her way to help a disabled boy who didn't even live in her riding.

The boy's family, who didn't have a lot of money, had applied to a government program that provides assistive devices like wheelchairs to disabled kids. Under the program, a disabled individual could get two different devices, e.g. a wheelchair and a hearing aid, but not two of the same device. The kid, who was about ten, really needed two walkers, a lightweight one that could maneuvre indoors around furniture, and a rugged one that he could take onto the playground. The program didn't recognize light and heavy walkers as being two different kinds of devices, and only granted the kid the lightweight walker. As a result, he couldn't go out for recess or participate in gym class at his school. This situation was devastating for the small boy, who had become depressed and begun grinding his teeth so hard that he needed dental work done on them.

The boy's father wrote a letter to the government, but unfortunately it was about 2000 words long and he spammed by e-mail to every MPP in Ontario (a strategy that usually ensures that every Member will stop reading by page 3 and think you're someone else's constituent). Marie, bless her, pulled the letter out of all the slush in her mailbox, declared "We have to fix this," and sicced us henchminions on the Health Minister. Within days, the program was reconsidering its policy on walkers.

It's moments like that and bosses like Marie Bountrogianni who make henchminioning more rewarding than many jobs with better salaries. I hope she's able to move on to better, if not necessarily bigger, things after the next election.