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If you’re searching for reasons why politicians and many in the mainstream media are as popular as flies in the vichyssoise these days, look no further than John Baird’s surreal exit from public life this week.

For a while there watching the ever-depressing Power and Politics, I thought we were saying goodbye to Lester Pearson instead of the PM’s attack-trained junkyard dog. (A tip of the hat to Ian Capstick for his refusal to sink to the occasion.)

The embrace between Baird and NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar seemed to turn the toxic battleground of the Commons floor into a Teddy Bear’s picnic — ironic, given how often Baird led the Harper government’s spittle-flecked berserker charge.

Wasn’t Dewar the guy who called Baird a “freeloader” after the minister used Canada’s London embassy for an eight-day holiday for himself and six friends back in 2012? Right, I forgot … Baird paid for drinks and cabs. Not a payment plan I’d recommend for a stay at the Savoy.

What we got yesterday was the same orgy of back-slapping that followed the death of our former finance minister. Jim Flaherty was a lot of things, but he was never a champion of the little guy, or a lovable leprechaun, or the best finance minister the universe has ever seen. He was a tough, hard-boiled, career politician who oversaw the downsizing of Canada (as he had overseen the downsizing of Ontario) in order to realize the Harper government’s purely political enterprise of balancing the budget.

While Flaherty got a state funeral, Baird got a quasi-state farewell party. This saccharine, sentimental send-off, from both his fellow MPs and from some of the journalists who covered it, offered yet another sign of how cozy the entire government/opposition/media club has become.

Why did no one think to ask Baird why he misled his own constituents when he first sought and then tossed aside the nomination to run again in 2015? As for the sentimental send-off, let’s be clear: John Baird is about as sentimental as a fish hook.

We’ve already seen the clip from Peter Mansbridge’s to-be-aired One on One interview with Baird; one can only imagine the rest while shuddering: Tell us, John, how hard was it to take that walk in the snow? Are the Guccis okay? Perhaps Baird, like Stockwell Day, can look forward to regular appearances on Evan Solomon in his new career as an ‘impartial’ media commentator. As for the notion of Baird helping the former premier of Australia fix the United Nations, well, picture Donald Trump reforming social security and you get the idea.

Why would so much of the media — which has been whipped by this government, and which this government, including Baird, despises to the core — indulge in such benevolent sadness at Baird’s departure when so many others are cheering?

Take the people who were forced to work with him. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the Pearson Building. For the first time in nearly four years, Canada’s foreign service can consider the giddy prospect of what life might be like when the suggestion of actually doing diplomacy might not lead to a trip to the woodshed. Enjoy it while you can, diplomacy dudes — Steve has an endless supply of sycophants whose preference is for an exchange of blows over words.

Baird was an utter misfit — a Foreign Affairs minister who didn’t believe in diplomacy, the United Nations, or any form of international justice. He was one hundred per cent a Chicago-school, new-conservative politician — never a statesman.

Take a look at the damage Baird and company have done to Canada’s foreign service. After playing a key role in forging the protocols on climate change, Canada walked away from Kyoto. From Europe to India to South Africa, this country was pilloried for breaking our national word.

We broke the pledge given we gave at Copenhagen to reduce carbon emissions. Then we began flogging our “ethical oil”, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet.

The final sour note: no emission controls on the oil and gas industry after seven years of empty promises. Lots of time for oil and gas, none for air and water.

Canada walked away from the United Nations convention established to fight drought, primarily in Africa. Baird characterized the global effort as a fruitless “talkfest”. And he took no questions from the media on why Canada was the only country to see it that way.

CIDA, Canada’s foreign-aid agency, was swallowed up by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Bottom line? CIDA is now just part of the Harper government’s program to turn our diplomats into salesman, linking foreign aid to doing business with your “benefactor.” On Baird’s watch, foreign aid to poor countries has plummeted. Some of it has been redirected to help pay for the bad corporate citizenship of our mining companies operating abroad.

Canadian Foreign Affairs professionals had to watch in horror as the Harper government refused the United Arab Emirates more commercial flights into Canada, after the UAE had given us the use of Camp Mirage as a staging area for our troops going into Afghanistan.

Canada made Mexicans get visas to visit.

The foreign service cringed as the government sold off embassy properties around the world and refused to contribute to the IMF fund to assist a struggling European Union.

The atmosphere became so toxic over at Foreign Affairs that it led to the longest strike in federal public service history. The Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers was out for six months over the revolutionary concept of equal pay for work of equal value.

True to form, the government slagged its own workers; in the end it was found to have bargained in bad faith by the Public Service Labor Relations Board. To fund the government’s fight to avoid paying an extra $4.2 million over three years, taxpayers had to swallow the cost of the six-month disruption: roughly a billion dollars. That was a steep fee to assure the Tim Horton’s crowd that Steve and John and the rest of them really, really hate unions — as much as they love that one per cent that is walking away with a grossly disproportionate slice of the national pie.

The only true thing anyone said about Baird’s resignation came from Baird himself: “You need to be defined by your own values.”

The Palestinians took care of that when they pelted the minister’s convoy with eggs in a recent trip to the Middle East. They defined him with his own values. And what, ultimately, did those values amount to? Baird was an utter misfit — a Foreign Affairs minister who didn’t believe in diplomacy, the United Nations, or any form of international justice. He was one hundred per cent a Chicago-school, new-conservative politician — never a statesman.

Think of it this way. Brian Mulroney was positioned by history to take a stand on apartheid and bravely led the way to abolish it. John Baird was positioned by history to take a stand on the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands — and he backed the occupiers to the hilt.

There will be no plaques or monuments to Canada in the West Bank or Gaza. Who knows, though? Maybe before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is through, he’ll name another bird sanctuary for John Baird.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, recently hit number one on Maclean’s magazine’s top ten list for Canadian non fiction.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

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