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OTTAWA — Certain things in public life should not be taken at face value — including election promises, government spending estimates and former ministers furthering their commercial interests under the guise of speaking about the national interest.

John Baird’s appearance on the Saudi regime’s mouthpiece channel, Al Arabiya, complaining that the Trudeau government has been “poking a finger in the eye” of the Saudis through its “hectoring tweets” did his reputation few favours.

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He was billed as a “former Canadian foreign minister,” which of course he is, but he should have been listed as a member of the international advisory board of Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company with a copper mine in the kingdom. It was transparently in Barrick’s interests that he was speaking.

Baird’s ill-advised intervention is a gift to the Liberals, who have framed themselves as standing alone on the moral high ground in defence of women’s rights, after publicly taking the Saudis to task for arresting two activists, including Samar Badawi, sister of imprisoned writer Raif Badawi.