Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird visited the Western Wall on Monday at the
tail end of a Middle East trip that took him to Lebanon and
Jordan.
According to Joseph Lavoie, the acting director of communications
in Baird’s office, the visit was a private one. The minister, Lavoie said, was
flying home from Ben-Gurion Airport after having visited Israel’s northern and
eastern neighbors.
Israeli diplomatic officials said Baird, who was last
in Israel in early February for the annual Herzliya Conference, was here on a
private visit and they did not know whether he had any government meetings
planned.
The Canadian foreign minister is a staunch supporter of
Israel.
The Hill Times, a Canadian weekly that covers that country’s
politics, listed him this year as the third-most influential person in Canadian
government and politics.
Asked by the magazine what he would be doing
were he not in politics, Baird replied: “Likely working on a kibbutz in
Israel.”
Baird, while in Jordan, announced that Canada would provide
Jordan with $6.5 million in new assistance to help it deal with an influx of
refugees from Syria. Baird, who visited the Zaatari refugee camp for the Syrian
refugees in northern Jordan, said his country would also donate $2m. for medical
supplies for doctors inside Syria, and another $1.5m. to the World Food Program
to help feed Syrian refugees.
This is in addition to some $8.5m. Canada
is already providing in humanitarian assistance to those suffering from the
violence in Syria.
An estimated 140,000 Syrian refugees have fled to
Jordan.