WELL I GUESS IT ISN"T INFLUENCE PEDDLING

Nevertheless it surely has an odour. Maybe the key is how the rules are written. Former Cabinet Ministers cannot take employment from a company with whom they've had "significant" dealings during the year before they left office. Now that is pretty darn loose. Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story titled "Appointment of Baird to Barrick job raises questions".

Both Maud Barlow of the Council of Canadians and Charlie Angus, the NDP ethics critic are not amused by this situation. They view this scenario of former senior Cabinet Ministers ending up in high paid corporate jobs as being ethical concerning. Mr. Angus refers to it as a revolving door between key industries and the cabinet. John Baird has been hired by Barrick Gold Corp. as an adviser plus he has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Canadian Pacific for a cool $235,000 annually. Nice work if you can get it.