A footnote of history for political junkies is that I was thrown out of the Conservative caucus one day before the Harper government brought in its long-awaited green plan, which turned out to be the recycled Clean Air Act.

During the caucus meeting which saw my ship go down, as you will be reading in due course, one of the major concerns colleagues had is that I would slam the plan as inadequate, and beneath my expectations. The fact that the day before I had interviewed Elizabeth May, Green Party leader, for a webcast on this site just sealed my fate. Heave-ho, overboard I went.

Of course, the world was told that Garth had sold some Harper Administration secrets to aliens or, worse, Belinda Stronach. But, not so much. In actual fact it was my published expectations for a decent climate change strategy that apparently did me in. I learned later a lot of people on the government benches thought I was about to jump to the Greens, especially since I’d served as a director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund for a few years, and published on environmental issues. Ironically, I had absolutely no intention of doing so. Honest!

Of greatest concern was my statement that I feared the Tory enviro plan would be a sellout to junk science and the oil sands. And, by gosh, I was right. It was, and it sucked. And you knew it. Public opinion surveys now rank the environment and climate change as the most pressing public policy concerns. Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership in no small part because of his credibility on this issue. The Green Party has jumped in the polls. And now the Harper Administration has recognized it messed up, fired Rona Ambrose and brought in John Baird to, as they l-o-v-e to say in Ottawa, “handle the file”.

Now. I probably know John Baird better than you do. I don’t traipse around official Ottawa on his arm, the way Laureen Harper does, but I’ve spent enough time near the guy to make a few observations. First, I never heard the word “environment” come out of his mouth before the cabinet shuffle last week.

Second, he is the most vicious partisan in the government, who has become a caricature of himself. In the opposition lobby outside the House of Commons, there are cartoons of him with a giant, six-foot-wide mouth. MPs often laugh when he stands up, in anticipation of the instant outrage he’ll manufacture. The man simply is not taken seriously and the fault is his own.

Third, he is a professional politician who has never had a non-political job. When he was barely into his twenties, Baird went to work on Parliament Hill, on the political staff of Tory minister Perrin Beatty, staying on until the defeat of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. He then briefly became a lobbyist to the federal government before winning a seat at Queen’s Park. He quickly became immersed in the right-wing ideology of the Mike Harris government, and joined cabinet in 1999 as minister of community and social services, where he implemented the hugely controversial workfare program that removed thousands of low-income people from social assistance.

In 2002, Baird was the first cabinet minister to jump on board Jim Flaherty’s leadership campaign. Each man had been elected in 1995, and each had become hard-core Harris supporters, sharing on obvious bond. Flaherty lost the campaign to Ernie Eves and Baird continued on, as government whip, then energy minister until the Conservative government was defeated in 2003.

Baird then co-chaired Flaherty’s second attempt at leadership in two years, which Mr. Flaherty lost to John Tory. At the same time, Baird was supporting Stephen Harper in his bid to become leader of the new Conservative Party, then co-chaired the federal party’s Ontario campaign in the same year. Both Baird and Flaherty then left provincial politics in 2005 to campaign for the House of Commons.

He was elected last January, became the President of the Treasury Board, and as such shepherded the Accountability Act through Parliament, managing along the way to admit the Conservatives had themselves breached the spirit of the legislation. Mr. Baird is where he is right now because Stephen Harper trusts him, not because he is an environmentalist. He’s a politician.

Now this is not a condemnation of John Baird and I actually find him a gas to be with. But I’m also a tad concerned I’m riding my motorcycle in January and that 2007 is forecast to be the hottest year ever. I’m worried that the declining price of oil will be used as an excuse by the energy sector not to invest in the technology we need to tame the tar sands. And I am pissed that a guy as smart as John would, on day one of his new job, be blaming the last government for greenhouse gases.

Get over it, big guy! We don’t care. We just want a plan with gonads that will establish targets that’ll be met. If it takes a professional pol like you to do it, fine. If not, maybe you should go dancing with Mrs. H.

By Garth Turner

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