Canadian Foreign Minister Baird empties the UN

Here's a screen capture taken at the 15:26 mark of John Baird's speech to the UN today. This is an event that will be treated with the utmost reverence on the evening news at CTVCBCGlobal tonight, and you can bet they'll all stick to the closely cropped shots of Baird talking.

So what did Mr. Baird have to say in the empty hall? John dropped a couple of impressive references to Homer and Cicero. Offered up the usual bromides about Israel's right to exist, because apparently in Canada there is still some confusion about the matter. Warned the world about the ulterior motives behind Iran's recent "charm offensive". Expressed concern for little girls and Syrians. Denounced the evil dictator who used chemical weapons on his own people.

If you want to know what he didn't talk about, you'll find it here in this handy fact sheet compiled by Canada's Assembly of First Nations.

There you'll learn that First Nations people in Canada live in Third World conditions; die younger, have higher rates of tuberculosis, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS, are imprisoned at exponentially higher rates than white Canadians, and are suffering a suicide epidemic.

Some would see the plight of First Nations in Canada as the continuation of 500 years of genocide by the colonizers. 

Apparently John Baird doesn't see it at all.

If he did, he'd stay home to do something about it instead of minding everybody else's business at the UN.