If everything is very important, then nothing is important.
For example, the Prime Minister earlier this year talked about the importance of the Arctic to our future. He's right. A hundred years from now, the strength of Canada is going to be coming from our resources in the Arctic.
I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities.
I can see now a vision emerging how Canada is going to profit in the future from our Arctic resources without destroying the environment on which it is all based.
We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.
So that was Reagan's political problem. As a rancher in California, he was an environmentalist himself. But the President of the United States doesn't control everything that happens in Washington.
You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.
You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you.
You accumulate political capital to spend it on noble causes for Canada. If you're afraid to spend your capital, you shouldn't be there.
Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming.
When I appointed the Minister of the Environment to major cabinet status, the Planning and Priorities committee, the signals that that sent through Ottawa were major, because that's what the bureaucracy understands.
We decided that the environment was an integral part of our policies and the political thrust of our government. We gave it the priority and we sustained it with the money required to make it happen.
There are so many demands on your time, on your resources, and on the prestige of the government.
The Conservatives over the years have done a great deal, from Sir John A, to Diefenbaker, and others.