Stevie O’Brien has been named chief of staff to new Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair.

Plus, new Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair won't oversee any part of the public service, PCO confirmed.

The Conservative Party has 128 official candidates for the 2019 election so far, while the Liberals have 21, and the Green Party has one. The NDP does not yet have any official candidates.

Kristina Molloy is now a director of policy for accessibility to Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility Minister Carla Qualtrough.

Célia Canon is one of two recent additions to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s political staff team.

Two ridings are officially vacant—Outremont, Que., and Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ont.—and two more, in Burnaby South, B.C. and York-Simcoe, Ont., will be by the end of September.

Also, Amitpal Singh has left the Prime Minister’s Office to join Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s team as a special assistant for policy.

Quebec is set to be an even bigger key battleground in the next federal election because of the collapse of both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP in the province.

Policy adviser Dan Lussier has joined new International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr’s office, along with fellow-Manitoba-native Jeff Kovalik-Plouffe.

Ashley Wright is Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s new director of policy, among other changes.

The building’s glass roof alone cost roughly $115-million, including $12.5-million for glazing, $1.9-million for the louvres, and $835,679 for the motorized system.

A number of staffing changes have taken place in the Prime Minister’s Office, including some related to the recent cabinet shuffle. More changes are expected to come by the end of August.

Plus, the status of women minister has hired a former Miss World Canada national finalist as her operations aide.

Mackenzie Radan has been working for Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr since March 2016, most recently as a policy adviser and issues manager.

While Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould recently tapped Alexander Steinhouse to fill in as her acting director of parliamentary affairs.

The Conservatives brought in $18,846,568 in donations last year, while the Liberals reported a total of $13,898,557 in donations. The NDP has yet to file its annual return for 2017.

‘If you were going to shuffle prior to a fall 2019 election, summer 2018 is probably a wise time to do it,’ says Greg MacEachern, a senior vice president at Proof Strategies.

Plus, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has a new interim communications director in her office, as her permanent D. Comms takes maternity leave.

The Conservatives are well into nominations, with 94 candidates in incumbent ridings so far. The Liberals nominated their first candidate last week, while the NDP will start near the end of summer.

'The key thing is it all comes down to ego. All these people have some of the biggest egos in the country,' said one Conservative staffer.

Veteran staffer Lucio Durante is now senior director, national field at the federal Liberal Party’s headquarters in Ottawa, helping to get the party ready for 2019.

A number of staffing changes have happened in the Liberal research bureau, also known as the LRB, in recent weeks.

The Information Commissioner’s office started 2018-19 with a backlog of 3,489 complaints, after a 20 per cent increase in new complaints filed in 2017-18.