NNSL (Mar 27/98) - They're calling in the heavy-hitters. Documents filed with Industry Canada's Lobbyist Registration Branch (LRB) reveal that the GNWT has commissioned two of Ottawa's most high powered lobbyists -- for an unknown fee -- to work on GNWT files in Ottawa.

Their mission? Providing strategic advice to Yellowknife related to the development of diamond mining in the Northwest Territories.

In December, two of the principal members of the Earnscliffe Strategy Group, Harry Near and Michael Robinson, signed on to do the work.

The pair of lobbyists will be lobbying federal government departments -- including Environment Canada, Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs -- in order to assist the development of a diamond industry in the North, documents from the LRB state.

And, observers of the Ottawa scene say the GNWT has chosen well in employing the pair.

"Michael Robinson is a Liberal strategist and political confidant of Finance Minister Paul Martin," Ottawa's Mike Scandiffio, a writer and regular CBC Radio commentator on Ottawa politics said Monday. "And Harry Near, he was quite a force during the (Brian) Mulroney years."

Near served as chief of staff to two of Mulroney's energy ministers as well as playing major behind-the-scene rolls in the Conservative back- to-back majority election victories of 1984 and 1988.

Andrew Hilton, a former managing editor of the Lobby xxxMonitor, a newsletter that monitors the cloudy world of Ottawa lobbying, agrees.

"If you want access to the Liberals, the Government of the Northwest Territories has picked a good one (lobby firm)," he said.

At Earnscliffe, Near said it was his company's policy not to discuss a client's file. He did, however, say that the GNWT has employed his firm before this latest registration.

Calls to the GNWT's representative in Ottawa, Richard Badgery, Monday, were not returned by press time.

The same is true concerning the GNWT press office in Yellowknife.