John Baird Returned To Environment Minister

John Baird: Angry Finger-Pointer or Environment Minister?

Upon the recent proverbial happy pill that Canadians received when MP Jim Prentice announced he was leaving politics to sell snake oil to, uh, sorry, promote CIBC and its services to corporate clients, we have all just been handed our inevitable downer pill.

John Baird, currently Canada's equivalent of Minister of State as been again handed the Environment portfolio. This comes almost two years to the day when he had been removed from the same post after his very public media Crucifixion resulting from his performance (or lack thereof) during the Bali Summit on Climate Change.

John Baird, arguably the loudest and often most obnoxious of MPs, has an environmental batting average that makes Rob Deer look like a superstar.

While it should not be a surprise to anyone that Stephen Harper's Conservative Government cares not about environmental issues, Canada is one of the world's most influential governments, and the Conservatives should at least try to look as though they are moving forward.

Handing this portfolio back to Baird, even if temporary, displays the arrogance of our current government, in the fact that they clearly don't care about public appearance. Obviously they are willing to continue to bully themselves around simply because they currently have the slight edge in the number of sitting MPs to do so.

Much like Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's opinion on numbers, maybe it's time to change them.