"I'm still trying to understand why you are leaving," Liberal MP Marc Garneau said to John Baird as he paid tribute to the exiting Foreign Affairs Minister in the House of Commons on Tuesday, and he seemed to be speaking for the political class as a whole.
For many who live and breathe politics, it is difficult to fathom that almost anyone is willing and able to leave while still in high demand. Adrenalin and ego, genuine commitment to public service and the need to be needed – they contribute to a real sense of community with fellow travellers, and a tendency to view leaving that community as a curiosity or a betrayal.
Mr. Baird is not just anyone, either. Unlike for someone like Mr. Garneau, politics has been his only calling. He visibly loved the life more than most, taking joy in the sort of trench political warfare others at least pretend to disdain. He was intensely loyal to Stephen Harper. And at only 45 years old, he was serving in a jet-setting dream job.
It may yet turn out there was some compelling reason for him to leave suddenly – a private-sector or international posting so amazing nobody could pass it up, or irreconcilable differences with the Prime Minister. But even if such an explanation emerges, this seems as much as anything a story of perspective and personal evolution.
Nobody could be more surprised by Mr. Baird's willingness to take this leap at this time than the 25-year-old Mr. Baird who arrived at Queen's Park as an MPP in the government of Mike Harris. And it's hard to imagine even the 36-year-old Mr. Baird who found his way to Parliament would believe it.
To say Mr. Baird has spent his entire adult life in politics understates matters. As a teenager, he managed both to get elected president of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives' youth federation and to get himself arrested for heckling then-premier David Peterson at a mall.
He was the prototypical kid politician made good, and appeared to lack empathy for those who weren't part of his tribe. As a provincial backbencher, he got into vicious shouting matches with the opposition, and on occasion members of the public. As social services minister, he used syringes as props while promoting a proposal to force welfare recipients to take drug tests. As a supporter of Jim Flaherty's leadership bid to replace Mr. Harris, he thought it was a good idea to have eventual winner Ernie Eves chased around by a giant waffle.
If Mr. Baird had any inclination to take a break from politics when the provincial Tories lost power in 2003, he didn't show it. If anything, he doubled down on the partisanship, memorably getting himself kicked out of the legislature when the newly elected Liberals brought down their first budget. When he decided it was time to move on, it was to leap straight to the federal realm.
The attack-dog inclinations continued to suit him when he got to Ottawa, and to some he became the snarling face of a government that embraced partisanship as much as he did. But he seemed to be more controlled and self-aware, and more willing to build bridges away from the cameras, by the time he became Foreign Affairs Minister in 2011.
On some matters, notably related to the Middle East, he remained as dogmatic in that post as ever. But a great deal of his job involved forging relationships across the globe that really didn't have much to do with ideological stripe, tapping into a diplomatic streak even he may not have known he had.
In recent years, he seemed downright statesmanlike, at least compared to his former self. And if his experience gave him perspective about the broader world out there, perhaps it also shed light on the opportunities for him within it.
Most of his colleagues in Ottawa don't have that kind of window. And leaving at the top is a luxury reserved for those who get there.
But the fact remains that one of the fiercest partisans this country has seen appears to be leaving behind the only life he has known. It's understandable if those still living it feel a little unsettled.
Adam Radwanski