BAIRD's Exit: Don’t expect a change in policy

[Oscar]

BAIRD's Exit: Don’t expect a change in policy

[ http://www.embassynews.ca/opinion/2015/ ... licy/46665 ]

Baird was, in the end, only another PMO foot soldier, loyal and unwavering.

Jim Creskey, EMBASSY, Feb 4 2015

Among a host of unknowns there is one certainty about the surprising early exit of Foreign Minister John Baird: Canada’s foreign policy will see no change.

For all of his considerable political talent and charm, Baird was in the end only another PMO foot soldier, loyal and unwavering, his personal talents untapped except in the promotion of his leader’s ideas.

The role of foreign minister has traditionally been the cabinet dream job - not so that a politician can spend endless hours on airplanes or hobnobbing with the world’s famous and infamous. The key word is legacy. A foreign minister’s term can go down in history or fall flat as a pancake.

Some former Canadian foreign ministers, like Lester B. Pearson, have earned a place in history so hallowed that their legacy is bound to the history of Canada.

Others pursued bold and progressive moves that noticeably made the world a better place.

Had any of them left unexpectedly in the middle of their term it would have been entirely reasonable to see a sharp turn in Canadian policy or at least a speed bump.

Former foreign minister Joe Clark comes to mind for his wise and progressive stance on fighting apartheid in South Africa. Clark and his Progressive Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, advocated for sanctions even though the conservative power duo of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were strongly opposed. Imagine Baird and Stephen Harper crossing Benjamin Netanyahu.

Former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for his significant personal contribution to making the treaty banning landmines a reality.

Had Axworthy unexpectedly departed the Chrétien government during that difficult diplomatic process the project could well have been endangered.

Pearson, Clark and Axworthy may be stars of Canadian foreign policy but the list of notable Canadian foreign ministers, ministers who were often known for having a strong personal influence on this country’s diplomacy, is a long one. It includes Flora MacDonald, Mark MacGuigan, John Diefenbaker, Louis St. Laurent and Paul Martin Sr. to name only a few.

Baird, on the other hand, ends a list of Harper government foreign ministers - Peter MacKay, Maxime Bernier, David Emerson, Lawrence Cannon - largely notable for only one major achievement: toeing the PMO line, right or wrong.

I don’t think John Baird, who is loyal to the core to the Harper Conservative party, would ever admit it, but serving as foreign minister under Stephen Harper couldn’t have been a comfortable assignment in the world of international relations.

From schools of global affairs to the world’s foreign ministries, Canada’s once exceptional good reputation has slipped, badly.

In diplomatic circles, in multinational organizations and non-governmental organizations, only polite diplomatic language holds back a barrage of criticism of the state of Canadian international relations today. The once virtuous ministry has fallen in esteem.

In a way it was predictable.


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[Oscar]

John Baird in praise of John Baird: Siddiqui

[ http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commenta ... diqui.html ]

John Baird's pronouncements about Canada's strength and compassion in the world are in inverse proportion to reality.

By: Haroon Siddiqui Columnist, Published on Wed Feb 04 2015

QUOTE: "Baird was a great success as Harper’s megaphone — a classic case of serving the boss obediently. That’s not the same thing as advancing Canada’s interest or reputation." ---Haroon Siddiqui’

EXCERPT:

Canada’s status sank so low under Harper that, for the first time in our history, we suffered the ignominy of a loss in a bid for the rotating seat on the UN Security Council. That shameful episode preceded Baird at Foreign Affairs but he became lead spear carrier for the very policies that led to that fiasco, including disdain for the UN, principally because it tries to hold Israel’s feet to the fire of international law.

Canada is still isolated. It was in a minority of nine at the General Assembly when 138 states voted to grant Palestinians “non-member observer state.”

As for Ottawa standing up for the oppressed, ask the Palestinians, now in their 48th year of an oppressive occupation. Some of them pelted Baird’s motorcade with shoes and eggs when he visited the West Bank last month.

Ask the tens of thousands of Egyptians rotting in jails what they think of Canada cozying up to their tormentor, the military dictator Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

Ask the dissidents in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain what they make of Canada lining up with the rulers who crushed their Arab Spring.

Ask the dissidents in China who feel abandoned by Ottawa biting its tongue on human rights to promote trade.

Take Baird’s self-praise that he has evolved from a partisan zealot at Queen’s Park under Mike Harris to a statesman in Ottawa under Harper. “I was driven by ideology, defined by partisanship, at the age of 25. I quickly learned though to make a difference, you can’t be defined by partisanship, nor by ideology.” Who is he kidding that he’s now less ideological or partisan? In fact, he has been more so and on a bigger stage. Foreign policy is politicized for the benefit the Conservative party, just as the Republicans long ago mastered the art of turning foreign relations to their advantage.

[Oscar]

Baird sees only white hats and black hats

[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinio ... 26931.html ]

By: Scott Taylor Posted: 02/18/2015 3:00 AM | Comments: 8

While the sudden departure of former foreign affairs minister John Baird admittedly came as quite a shock, what was truly shocking was the heap of unblemished praise pundits, colleagues and the media dumped into his legacy-forming farewells.

I'm not one to relish in kicking a guy when he's making a voluntary exit, but in this case -- for the sake of bringing a little balance back to the equation -- I think a few pointed reminders are in order.

My press gallery colleagues can muse all they want about what a quiet, gentle man Baird was in private, but his public persona was that of the Conservative party's barking monkey and loyal pit-bull defender of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Kind-hearted analysts credited Baird with having single-handedly forged Canada's current foreign affairs policy. This would not have taken Baird very long to do, as he admitted early on in his tenure as minister he simplified all equations into either black hats or white hats (bad guys vs. good guys).

Armed with this fail-safe formula, Baird was quick to plunge Canada into the civil war in Libya in the spring of 2011. Crazy old Moammar Gadhafi had to be the black hat, so Baird set about with his white crayon drawing white hats on the Libyan rebels. While Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard led the international military intervention, Baird became by far the most strident of all western leaders in pushing for Gadhafi's ouster.

As the uprising stagnated into a military stalemate, international observers began to examine just who constituted the assortment of Libyan rebel leaders. It quickly became apparent they were a motley collection of Islamic fundamentalists, human traffickers and ruthless criminals.

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[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinio ... 26931.html ]

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NESTRUK: COMMENT: White Hats - Black Hats
From: shane Nestruck
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 2:30 PM
To: Letters WFP
Subject: White Hats - Black Hats

The Editor
Winnipeg Free Press

Dear sir;

Congratulations to the WFP for publishing ‘Baird sees (saw) only white hats and black hats’ WFP 18.2.15
[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinio ... 26931.html ]

This commentary by Scott Taylor of Esprit de Corps magazine is essential reading for any Canadian who wishes to be informed about this Harper Government and its simple-minded foreign policy.

Taylor fully informs us of the tragic role former foreign minister John Baird has played in the demise of both Canada’s foreign policy and its international reputation as an intelligent peace-loving country.

Unfortunately, Taylor omits to make a strong connection between John Baird’s irresponsible, simple-minded* policies and our Prime Minister Steven Harper’s equally simple-minded policies on the environment, social policy, justice for aboriginal women, and ‘The Economy’ which Harper sees only in myopic oil industry simplicity.

Shane Nestruck
shanedn@shaw.ca
381 Arnold Ave.
Winnipeg, MB R3l 0W8
h 204-474-2588
c 204-510-8828