John Baird: Canada's freedom agenda - Diplomat Magazine

Di spatches|FOREIGN AFFAIRSOn the personal side:A Tim Hortons FANQ: How long are your days?A: Every day is different. There’s a huge amount of travel.Visits to Indonesia, Italy, Libya, the U.S., China, Brazil, Colombia,Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Netherlands, France, Turkey,Australia, Kuwait, UAE, Germany and Lithuania. There`s ahuge amount of reading. An obviously significant amount ofmy time is spent engaging. (On this day, after question period,he’ll meet successively with the chargé d’affaires of Sudan, theprime minister of Georgia and Alex Neve, secretary general ofAmnesty International Canada.)Q: When you`re home, what is your daily schedule?A: I’m up every morning at 6 o’clock, listen to the Steve Madely[CFRA] show ‘til 6:30 and then I get up and go.Q. Breakfast?A: Cereal and milk.Q: Do you drink coffee?A: I’m addicted to Tim Hortons. I stop every morning on theway to work and have a Tim Hortons.Q: Do you drive to work?A: I have a driver. I read the newspapers very quickly: theOttawa Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, the National Post, The Globeand Mail and the Toronto Star (when it’s available). I live in EastNepean so I don’t have a long trip to read them.Q: What regular meetings do you attend?A: I meet with the deputy [Morris Rosenberg] several timesa week but every Monday I have a private meeting with himand get briefed on a good number of issues. And there's P&P[cabinet’s priorities and planning committee], Eastern Ontariocaucus and national caucus, and meetings with the inner cabineton Thursday mornings every few weeks.Q: Working lunch?A: I grabbed a salad in the cafeteria today and ate it duringprep for question period. Some days I’ll put some vegetarianchili in the microwave.Q: Are you a vegetarian? Do you eat meat?A: No.Q: Do you eat fish, eggs, cheese?A: Yes.Q: What do you eat for dinner?A: [Big laugh] I eat out. My favourite foods are sushi, Thai,Chinese.Q: How do you do with so much travel abroad — jet lag?A: I’ve learned it’s always good to fly at night. We went to theLibya meeting, to Italy and France. We left at 8 a.m. When welanded it was already 11:30 at night, so 5 or 6 p.m. our time. Icouldn’t sleep all night.Mr. Baird at the opening of the Ottawa Humane Society's newfacility with Chance the cat.Q: Do you exercise?A: No.Q: Is there a sort of Clan of the Cat in the Harper government?A: There is a sort of cat clan. There is a group of us. Laureen[Harper] had me over to 24 Sussex [last spring]. She had somekittens from the Ottawa Humane Society that she had takenand was nursing. [Both cat lovers, the Harpers have fosteredmany kittens for later adoption.] There were two or threereally cute ones.Then [strangely] she said: ``You probably wouldn’t want totake them. You’d be travelling all the time.” I looked at her— and that was before the cabinet shuffle — and I went [hemakes a quizzical face and laughs].”(Days later, he was appointed foreign affairs minister. Call ita case of letting the cat out of the bag.)Another cat person is Marjory LeBreton [government Senateleader]. Monte Solberg [former citizenship and immigrationminister] was a cat person. So was Sandra Buckler [Mr. Harper`sformer communications director]. There are a lot of us.Q: How do you relax?A: I go out with my friends.Q: When do your days end?A: I try to always get to bed by, at the latest, 11 or midnight.I’m not a nighthawk.Q: Books you’re reading?A: I was just given Richard Gwyn’s book Nation Maker — SirJohn A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times. I took it with me onmy last trip but I didn’t have a chance to get to it because I wasworking or reading for work.I did a book review for The Globe [and Mail newspaper] —Craig Oliver’s book, Oliver’s Twist. [Oliver's Twist: The Life &Times of an Unapologetic Newshound].Q: How do you deal with criticism, in country and out?A: You learn to have a thick skin. You’re human like everyoneelse. At the same time, if you believe in what you’re doing, that’sbetter than if all you did is to listen to your critics every day.Donna Jacobs is publisher of Diplomat.Pat McGrath, Ottawa Citizen42 WINTER 2012 | JAN-FEB-MAR