Statesman

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.

Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming.

I am not denying anything I did not say.

If your only objective is to be popular, you're going to be popular but you will be known as the Prime Minister who achieved nothing.

It's my responsibility, and entirely my fault, Of course I regret it. It's the kind of locker-room conversation we all use, but as prime minister I shouldn't have used it.

You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

And look, I was a big, brassy guy who won and won big. I did what I wanted.

First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.

You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you.

In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.

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.

Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in and save it.

And, of course, the fact that Maurice Strong, a Canadian, was in charge made it important for us to pull up our socks and become leaders in this field. Now, here is a field we should be a leader in!

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.

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.

If everything is very important, then nothing is important.

The Conservatives over the years have done a great deal, from Sir John A, to Diefenbaker, and others.

I would go to them and I would explain this is the price of going forward. We're going to move ahead in all these other areas. We're moving ahead in tax reform and GST, we are moving ahead on trade, but this will not be done at the cost of the environment.

Every cabinet minister gets a mission statement from the Prime Minister.

The biggest trading partner of the United States is not West Germany or Japan, it's right here.