John Baird to resign from cabinet
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is stepping down from cabinet, putting a question mark over a political career that spans two decades.

thestar.com
Feb. 2, 2015
By Alex Boutilier

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is stepping down from cabinet, putting a question mark over a political career that spans two decades and leaving Stephen Harper’s Conservative government with a big cabinet hole in an election year.

Baird is set to announce that he won’t be running in his Ottawa riding in the federal election expected in October. Baird has held the riding since 2006, when Harper first came to power.

“(Baird) had a successful career in both provincial and federal parliaments. This was simply the right time to move on,” said a Conservative source close to Baird.

“The minister is looking to turn the page on 20 years of public service and, like anyone in public office, is looking for new opportunities at the young age of 45.”

A close friend of Baird’s said the foreign affairs minister had decided that 20 years of public life was enough.

“He simply decided it was time to go, “the source said. “He will be ready to do a variety of things.”

Baird’s office issued a statement late Monday night saying that he would be making a statement in the Commons on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

International Trade Minister Ed Fast will replace Baird as acting foreign affairs minister, CBC reported.

Baird’s resignation would cap a political career that dates back to his days as a cabinet minister in the Mike Harris government at Queen’s Park.

The departure is a blow for Harper, who had come to rely on Baird not only for his steady hand as Canada’s top diplomat but also as a veteran communicator who was often tapped to help fight the political firestorm of the day in question period.

Baird was first elected to Parliament in 2006 and was among the Ontario veterans from the Harris cabinet whom Harper came to rely on for their experience. The others included Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty, whose own resignation from cabinet last March was another blow for the prime minister. Flaherty died a short time later.

Baird is one of a handful of cabinet ministers who are known around Ottawa to have Harper’s trust. In the foreign affairs file - a portfolio he was given after the election in 2011 - he has shown a measure of autonomy while voicing Canada’s position on international affairs.

His previous role as a question period pit bull made him the subject of scorn with opposition parties. But as foreign affairs minister, Baird earned some goodwill in the House of Commons, and was known as a reasonable MP - even while remaining strongly partisan.

Paul Dewar, the NDP’s foreign affairs critic who recently accompanied Baird on a trip to Iraq, said that he enjoyed a good working relationship with his fellow Ottawa representative despite their political differences.

“You can go to John and talk to him and know that they’re going to be taken seriously,” Dewar said in an interview late Monday.

“He has integrity, for sure. And in politics that’s probably the most important thing.”

Baird has spent much of his life in politics, first elected to Queen’s Park in his mid-20s. Under the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, Baird rose from a junior minister to the government house leader and minister of energy.

First elected federally when the Conservatives came to power in 2006, Baird has held some of the most important positions in federal politics: president of the Treasury Board, minister of environment and minister of transport. Close acquaintances have said that foreign affairs, however, was the best fit for the Ottawa West-Nepean MP.

According to Conservative sources in Toronto, Baird is expected to take a private sector job, although it was unclear late Monday night what the position may be. It’s been recently reported that Baird is being courted by the UN, via former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, to assist with an overhaul of the World Health Organization.