Incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emailed me in the early evening, asking me to go to Ottawa as a political staffer. What would I do? Could I really uproot my family and quit my job? When I finally figured out it was a mass email inviting anyone to apply, I realized my talents probably lay elsewhere.The federal Liberals generated a fair amount of media attention from this outreach exercise. Soliciting applications for political staff positions through social media and its website, the party claimed that it received over 10,000 c.v.s — many of a high calibre.Let's hope that the new government puts as much energy and creativity in hiring, training and managing these new staff as they did in attracting applications.The role of political staff is not widely understood. As someone who has been both a staffer (including for a former prime minister) as well as a cabinet minister who employed political staff, I understand their immense value as well as the dangers posed by the authority and responsibility they are given.Political staffers tend to be smart, enthusiastic, energetic, loyal and willing to work long hours in a pressure-cooker situation. They also tend to be young, fresh out of school and usually have little real-life experience.Political staff are invaluable. They liaise with other political offices and the bureaucracy, put a political lens on policy proposals and prepare ministers for question period and media interviews. As John Crosbie put it colourfully, “You spend about 32 hours a week sitting on your arse in Cabinet or Committee meetings, Question Period and other types of meetings. You couldn't be everywhere, so you need able assistants.”Sometimes, political staffers do other things. By invoking the minister's name or blocking access to the minister, they have been known to kill proposed initiatives, withhold information, inappropriately commit the government, bully public servants and even write a personal cheque for $90,000 in an attempt to defuse a scandal. Those around a prime minister or premier have been known to micro-manage government operations and make the lives of senior government officials miserable.Political pundits had a particular fascination with the staff around former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, often painting a frightening picture of a group of unelected political hacks terrorizing all of Ottawa, including Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and Senators. And in some cases, despite a lack of experience, professional background or sufficient formal education, unafraid to weigh in on some of the government's most sensitive files.The answer is not to get rid of political staff but to clarify their roles — something that experts have suggested for decades. In a 1967 article, noted Canadian constitutional scholar J.R. Mallory wrote of “an intermediate class of persons in the Minister's Office, who are political rather than bureaucratic in their functions, appointed rather than elected, and who operate in an area which strict constitutional theory does not recognize as existing.”Mallory makes a valid point. In Canada, the constitutional authority to make many decisions rests with the prime minister or premier and his or her ministers — decisions that are often communicated through staff. But what happens when those same staff members begin to make decisions themselves based on their sense of what the minister probably wants? Or, by blocking access or information, prevent their bosses from knowing the whole story?There are no easy answers. Politicians are extremely busy people who require ongoing support and advice — including a perspective from outside of the public service. They need gatekeepers and trusted advisers to whom they can delegate responsibility.But some thoughtful advice has come forward.Ontario's integrity commissioner examined the matter earlier this year while, more recently, the Public Policy Forum released an expert panel report on restoring trust in Canada's public institutions. Both acknowledged the importance of political staff but called for significantly more training about their role, particularly as it relates to their relationship with the public service and the party apparatus. The federal panel went further, calling for a code of conduct for political staffers and a formal oversight mechanism for their conduct.Although a good start, I would add training for ministers themselves on these matters. There often seems to be an assumption that even a minister without prior government experience will somehow instinctively understand the proper role played by political staff.But training and oversight only go so far. The elevated and inappropriate role played by political staff in the Harper government — and many other governments of different political stripes — occurred because of a culture that was allowed to develop. If the Liberals truly want to do things differently, they would be well advised not only to pay close attention to the selection, training and oversight of political staff, but also to be clear about the role they expect these individuals to play within government.John Milloy is a former Ontario cabinet minister who served as MPP for Kitchener Centre from 2003 to 2014.  Prior to that, he worked on Parliament Hill, including five years in the office of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. He is currently the Co-director of the Centre for Public Ethics and Assistant Professor of Public Ethics at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, and the inaugural Practitioner in Residence in Wilfrid Laurier University's Political Science department. He is also a lecturer in the University of Waterloo's Master of Public Service Program. John can be reached at: [email protected] or follow him on twitter at: @John_Milloy.