Beer buggy Baird blasted
Front-page photo 'disgusts' recovering alcoholic
by Earl McRae
As originally posted on: Canada Votes 2008
September 9, 2008
John Baird pretending he's drunk?
John Baird making light of alcoholism?
Phil thinks he was, and he wants Baird to publicly apologize.
Phil is a recovering alcoholic. A former member of AA. He's in his 50s.
Alcoholism, he told me in his phone message, is a terrible thing. "It almost ruined my life. It's not something to make fun of. I've been a Baird supporter, but not after this. I'm not the only one upset over that picture."
He was referring to the photo on the front of Sunday's Ottawa Sun of Ottawa West-Nepean MP, and Conservative environment minister, John Baird. Baird is returning cases of beer to the Beer Store on Baseline Rd. as part of a fundraiser for Roger's House.
TWISTED MOUTH
Baird is sitting on a beer buggy The Senators mascot Spartacat is behind Baird, pushing the buggy. Baird has a case of empties in his hands. Baird is splaying his legs out in front on him. Baird is cocking his head to one side. Baird is opening his mouth wide and twisted.
"Look at the face," said Phil. "I've seen that look on a lot of guys staggering drunk out of bars. Assuming he wasn't actually drunk in the picture, there was no need for him to fake that he was. It's pretty disgusting. He's a pretty bright guy, but I'd tell him to grow up."
I take a copy of the paper to Carlingwood Mall, which is in Baird's riding.
The food court. Amelia Cooper and her husband Al are sitting, eating.
They're both 68. I show them the photo of John Baird on the front page.
"Yeah, no, I don't think he's acting like he's drunk," says Al, "I think he's just goofing around."
He studies the picture some more. "I can see where someone would think he's pretending he's bombed because it's a beer store and he's holding all those bottles, but - I don't know, who knows? It doesn't bother me any, though."
'HAS MORE BRAINS...'
"It does look like he's trying to look like a drunk person," says Amelia, "but I think a better explanation is the lion. It's pushing the cart and maybe he (Baird) is looking that way to suggest that it's going fast and he's afraid. I don't think he'd make fun of getting drunk. Surely he has more brains than that."
"He owes us an explanation," said Phil.
I go to Baird's campaign headquarters on Carling Ave. looking for him. I miss him by an hour. A volunteer worker gives me the cellphone number of Chris Froggatt, his campaign manager.
I phone Froggatt, I ask: "The photo of John Baird on the front page of the Sunday Sun was he deliberately trying to look drunk? If he was, there's some suggestion he was being insensitive to alcoholism."
"Not at all," says Froggatt. "He was just having fun."
"So he wasn't pretending he was blitzed?"
GOOD CAUSE
"Him and Sparty were having fun. He was hamming it up. It was for a good cause, Roger's House."
"Right. And, of course, he wasn't drunk, nor was he acting like he was?"
"He was just having fun. Everybody thought it was a fun picture. He was having fun and promoting a great cause."
"And not trying to look as if he was drunk."
"No. He was having fun."
Last resort: Sun photographer Tony Caldwell, who took the picture.
"He was just having fun. I was trying to get him to smile for the camera and that's what he came up with. He had that look on his face for quite some time while I shot frames of him. He wasn't trying to look drunk, that was just his way of hamming it up."
Okay, benefit of the doubt to John Baird - but, having said that, there are less suspicious "fun" ways to look when sitting on a beer buggy outside a beer store and holding a box of empties.
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