College cash 'generous': Baird

By Caitlin Kenny

kenn0290@algonquincollege.com

March 12, 2009

Kat Guerin photo John Baird, the federal transportation and infrastructure minister.

Although John Baird has remained quiet about the allegations of his involvement in Mayor Larry

O’Brien’s bribery trial, the minister spoke comfortably about the situation to a classroom of Algonquin journalism students on Feb. 26.

Despite that day’s intense media coverage, after having received his subpoena to testify in the trial, the federal transport minister spoke to the first-year class about a variety of issues - including the trial itself.

He has been called to testify in O’Brien’s bribery trial about the allegations that O’Brien offered to help mayoral opponent Terry Kilrea land a federal appointment if he would back out of the 2006

mayoral election.

It was reported in the Ottawa Citizen’s front page story that detectives had received a tip that Baird, whose office was in charge of appointments at the time, had met with O’Brien in an Ottawa steakhouse in 2006.  

Although Baird has said little to the media about the allegations, he did comment on the situation during his scheduled appearance before the students.

“I think the whole thing has been very, very sensationalized,” he said.

Baird explained that he did receive an e-mail from Terry Kilrea asking about the rumours that he had an appointment, to which Baird said he replied, “Sorry Terry, I don’t know anything about it.’”

In a relaxed matter, Baird told the class that the e-mail interaction was the complete extent of his involvement.

“I wouldn’t say it doesn’t bother me, because it does,” he said. “But I’m not up at night worrying about it because when you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have to worry.”

O’Brien’s trial is scheduled to begin April 27 in the Ontario Superior Court.

Alongside the comments about his personal situation, Baird also spoke about the situation the Canadian economy faces.

“We’ve seen monumental changes in the economy,” he said. “We’ve seen companies like Nortel go under and file for bankruptcy. So we’ve got to respond in a big way.”

A key to this response lies in infrastructure spending, which should “put a bit of a shot in the arm of the Canadian economy.” But this action is too often hampered by bureaucratic processes, Baird said.

“We’re moving aggressively to take the existing programs we have and speed them up. There’s far too much red tape, regulatory and legislative process, bureaucracy and political games that we’re working to clean up.”

As an example of these delays, Baird mentioned his hopes to fund money for the trades building that Algonquin has planned. “The minute we give a dollar, we require a brand new federal environmental assessment.”

Considering that such assessments can slow projects down by over a year, Baird said the best answer is to strategize so that fewer assessments are required.

“We’re working at a common sense approach,” he said. “We’re cutting back the bureaucratic processes. Politically, we have far too much talk and not enough action.”

Although Baird did not speak specifically about how much money Algonquin could expect for the project, he said that the government’s contribution would be “quite generous” given that it has allocated a total of $600 million for colleges and universities across the country.