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.

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

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.

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

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.

Once you articulate an agenda, you have to follow it.

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