[2] A long-time resident of the former city of Nepean, where he attended Bell High School, and a graduate of Kingston's Queen's University, he was the member of the House of Commons of Canada for the riding of Ottawa West—Nepean until 2015.

Baird served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2005 for the riding of Nepean—Carleton (part of Nepean until 1999), and was a cabinet minister in the Progressive Conservative governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

The next year, aged sixteen, Baird was the youngest delegate to attend the party's January 1985 provincial leadership convention,[7] as a supporter of Ontario Attorney-General Roy McMurtry.

Baird was charged with trespassing during the 1988 federal election, after he tried to question Ontario Premier David Peterson about free trade with the United States during a Liberal Party campaign stop in a Kingston shopping mall.

[19] Baird joined Premier Harris's cabinet on June 17, 1999, as Minister of Community and Social Services, where he became responsible for implementing and expanding Ontario's workfare program.

[17] Baird's first press conference as a cabinet minister was held in July 1999, and was intended to highlight the Harris government's record in reducing the provincial welfare rolls.

[22] A September 1999 report from Baird's ministry showed that 10,600 workfare placements had been created in the first six months of 1999, a figure which the Toronto Star observed was significantly lower than that which had been predicted by the government.

[24] Baird sparked criticism in late 1999 for refusing to cancel a five-year contract that had been signed between his department and the Bermuda-based private firm Andersen Consulting (later Accenture), worth up to $180 million.

The contract, signed when Janet Ecker was Community and Social Services minister, entrusted Andersen with providing technological upgrades to the province's welfare management system.

"[40] Shortly after Baird's announcement, a government website operated by the Ministry of Community and Social Services launched an attack against Liberal Party leader Dalton McGuinty for opposing the drug testing plan.

[42] In early 2001, Baird announced that his government's proposed drug-testing plan would be extended to identify welfare recipients addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol.

[49] Baird was the first cabinet minister to support Jim Flaherty's campaign to succeed Mike Harris as Progressive Conservative leader in the party's 2002 leadership election.

[50] The election was won by Flaherty's rival Ernie Eves, and early media reports suggested that Baird might be dropped from the new premier's cabinet in April 2002.

[58] In November 2002, however, he was followed around the province by "Hydrozilla", a man in a giant lizard suit sent by the Ontario New Democratic Party as a stunt to show that deregulating electricity rates would create an 'economic monster' for consumers.

[73] Baird played an aggressive role in Question Period after his appointment to cabinet, leading MP Garth Turner to describe him as Stephen Harper's "Commons pit bull".

The Accountability Act restricted the ability of former politicians and bureaucrats to become lobbyists, provided protection to whistle-blowers in the civil service and gave the Auditor General of Canada new powers of oversight.

[81] Shortly after the Accountability Act was introduced to parliament, Reid issued an emergency report saying that the legislation would "increase the government's ability to cover up wrongdoing, shield itself from embarrassment and control the flow of information to Canadians".

[85] Shortly after the bill first passed the Commons, Baird acknowledged that the Conservatives might have unintentionally broken political financing laws by failing to report convention fees collected in 2005.

[97] An Ottawa Citizen report in January 2007 revealed that federal officials had not posed any objections to the light-rail project before Baird's intervention, and suggested that his involvement was political in nature.

"[113] Opposition parliamentarians dismissed the report as a scare tactic, while Liberal Environment critic David McGuinty argued that the study was misleading, saying that it did not properly examine international emission trading and ignored jobs to be created through the "green economy".

[114] The report claimed that Canada's ability to invest in developing nations to meet emissions targets through CDM by misquoting the amount of credit to be $85 million instead of the real approximation of $3 billion.

He described the report as a "turning point in the battle against climate change," while indicating his surprise that human activity was found to be a major cause of the phenomenon.

[118] Baird's proposal has been met with approval from Canada's oilpatch executives, who described them as the toughest emission regulations in the world, and who feared that more stringent standards would stifle oil sands exploration.

[124] Liberal Party MP Pablo Rodriguez introduced to the House of Commons a private bill that would have forced Canada to comply with the Kyoto Treaty in response to the government's plan.

[129] On February 12, 2007, Baird appeared at a press conference with Stephen Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest to announce a $1.5 billion environmental fund for the provinces.

Several European countries had already set up a trading system to allow companies that reduce their emission levels below government targets to sell "credits" on an international market.

[112] Baird defended another Conservative government decision to cut funds for climate science research, arguing that further studies are largely superfluous in light of recent United Nations reports.

[135] He told that the government's approach "will be to provide regulation for industry to ensure we reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and reduce air pollutants"[136] While participating at the United Nations Summit On Climate Changes in Bali, Indonesia, Baird announced a $86 million funding to help Canadian communities notably coping with the loss of forests due to pine beetles in the west and of infrastructures in the north due to softer soil.

[citation needed] After resuming his environment portfolio from November 2010 until January 2011, Baird was the Harper government's main representative to the United Nations climate conference in Cancun in December 2010.

[148] Baird's criticism of the stance of several African countries on same-sex rights and of the Russian Federation for its ban on "homosexual propaganda" and other moves to suppress LGBT rights have been condemned by the social conservative lobby group REAL Women of Canada which issued a statement accusing him of "abuse of office" claiming that "Mr. Baird's actions are destructive to the conservative base in Canada and causing collateral damage to his party.