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John Baird to be volunteer adviser to group helping the developmentally disabled
Former foreign affairs minister John Baird is helping Ontario’s most vulnerable.

TheStar.com
Aug. 12, 2015
Robert Benzie

Some of Ontario’s most vulnerable citizens are getting a powerful advocate.

Former foreign affairs minister John Baird will be a volunteer strategic adviser to Community Living Ontario, which helps some 12,000 Ontarians with intellectual disabilities.

“I’m really keen to try to help them,” Baird said Wednesday.

The one-time provincial community and social services minister, who boosted funding for developmental services during his 1999-2002 tenure at the department, said he wants to work with different levels of government to improve the lot of the intellectually handicapped.

Baird stressed he will take a “non-partisan role” in his advocacy, noting governments of all political stripes have wanted to boost the employment and inclusion opportunities for people with such challenges.

“We’ve come a long way in the last 50 years, but there’s a lot more work to do,” he said.

Since retiring from politics last March, Baird has taken a post as a senior adviser at the law firm Bennett Jones and as global strategic adviser to Hatch Ltd., the Canadian engineering giant.